For people interested in actual reality, the second most basic of all military strategies immediately following the use of force, is deceiving the enemy.

If your objective is A you want your enemy to believe your objective is B.

If you want to break through at a point at A, let's call is A1, then you want to trick your enemy into reinforcing other points other than A1, ideally not even in the vicinity of A but to move forces to B and C and so on.

This is called "Defeat in Detail" or more popularly "Divide and Conquer" described by Wikipedia as:

Defeat in detail, or divide and conquer, is a military tactic of bringing a large portion of one's own force to bear on small enemy units in sequence, rather than engaging the bulk of the enemy force all at once. — Defeat in detail - wikipedia

The end result of all these deliberations is that Russia divides Ukrainian forces between defending the North and the South, allowing Russian forces to overwhelm Ukrainian defenders in the South and conquer critically strategic terriroty.

The opposition here wants us to believe that this happened accidentally or then as a "consolation prize" to Russia's actual plan of defeating and occupying the North and installing a puppet regime, dedicating about 10% of their overall force in Ukraine to this primary objective.

This latter narrative has so little support that proponents are reduced to simply refusing to accept the common use of words like "siege".

What is more interesting than debating what "siege" means, is why the myth is developed that Russia has completely failed, incompetent, irrational, in disarray, in comparison to a standard of performance expected from the Russians (easily defeat all of Ukrainian forces in a few days, as little as 3, and occupy Kiev) that no expert expected before the war, is that it supports refusing negotiations, which is what the West, in particular the US, wants Ukraine to do.

That's not what happened. — Echarmion

That's exactly what happens.

The "limited excursion" into South-Eastern Ukraine refers to establishing a land bridge to Crimea.

Literally called by the author "Sub-COA 1c: Create a Land Bridge from Rostov to Crimea".

Which is the third "Courses of Action Subordinate to COA 1" in an order of likelihood, following the most likely in the authors opinion:

1. Sub-COA 1a: Deploy Forces to Belarus

and 2. Sub-COA 1b: Overt Deployment in Donbas

Both of which also happen.

The situation on the ground at the moment is that Russia implemented exactly this reports top 3 likely things.

The options to view actions in the North that were abandoned are:

A. Putin and his generals also believed he could waltz in and take Kiev with 20 000 troops.

B. The northern operation was primarily representing a little thing in military parlance called "deception", to divert focus and resources in the North, while more feasible military objectives are achieved in the South.

The evidence for B is that Russia does not commit the troops remotely necessary to take a city of 3 million people, bypasses all urban centres (which are critical to capture for the purposes of long term occupation, but better to avoid if the operation is ephemeral) and does not engage in any Urban combat at all, whereas in the South fierce Urban combat takes place, particular in Mariupol, as the author predicts is necessary:

Securing a land route from Rostov to Crimea would require taking the heavily defended city of Mariupol — FORECAST SERIES: Putin’s Likely Course of Action in Ukraine - Institute for the Study of War

So, what is more probable? That Russia tried and failed to conquer and occupy Northern Ukraine with 20 000 troops ... or that the plan to do what Institute of the Study of War finds feasible with Russia's available forces involves a tiny bit of subterfuge and making the Ukrainians believe, at least at the very onset of the war, there is a full scale invasion with the purpose of taking the capital. Subterfuge perhaps aided by the West repeating at face value a "leaked plan" where Russia would take Kiev, Kharkiv, Odessa, and all of Ukraine in one blow.

What is remarkable, and rather ridiculous, is the need of some people to paint any Russian failure (because the northern WAS a failure, by any reasonable means) as some kind of cunning Russian plan — Jabberwock

It needs to be pointed out that the whole theory of 'just threatening Kiyv' with an army that was supposedly obviously and clearly incapable of threatening Kiyv, is simply incoherent. — Jabberwock

It needs to be pointed out that the whole theory of 'just threatening Kiyv' with an army that was supposedly obviously and clearly incapable of threatening Kiyv, is simply incoherent. — Jabberwock

As far as I can see the common charge is incompetence, not irrationality. — Echarmion

I was pointing out that the article specifically described missile attacks as 'shelling'. — Jabberwock

Well, considering the shelling I was referring to is explicitly described as artillery shelling by the primary source for the information (the municipality of Kiev) in Ukrainian based publications, your issue with the article is totally irrelevant to our debate.

Yes, that is one target of shelling which we have already mentioned. Russians were able to target it, because it was far on the outskirts of Kiyv. — Jabberwock

As I already pointed out, industrial zones are usually beyond the residential zones, and artillery can have up to 30 km, so your point that Russia gets to the residential zone of Kiev should indicate to anyone familiar with "cities" generally speaking that the Russians would have a position to shell industrial zones (that have military value in terms of producing, or being retooled to produce, military hardware), that it would be one thing the Russians might do ... and indeed the Russians do shell industrial targets and so that it one positive (for the Russians) of their Northern operation.

Except the military expert himself never used that word... And yes, encirclement of Kiyv was one of the expected scenarios. — Jabberwock

You are correct, as far as the original source goes, the citation is:

If the Russian troops move forward at the same pace, it will be two days before they reach the suburbs of Kiev, followed by an operation to isolate and completely detain Kiev and start applying pressure. — Col. Margo Grosberg

Which Wikipedia correctly paraphrases as "siege".

All of which is a response to your claim that:

No, the Wikipedia does not say the 'siege' lasted in that period, in fact it did not use that term at all (only you and the sensationalist press insist on using that term, clearly not understanding what it actually means). — Jabberwock

Which is even more directly contradicted by the Wikipedia authors themselves paraphrasing the colonel with the word "siege" as it is at their discretion to describe the situation as a siege, which it obviously is.

Another appearance of the word "siege" in the Wikipedia page is a source, The Washington Post, who publishes an article literally called:

European leaders travel to Kyiv as Russian siege of Ukrainian capital continues — European leaders travel to Kyiv as Russian siege of Ukrainian capital continues - The Washington Post

But I guess this is the "sensationalist press" that wants to sensationalist an army encircling most of a city as "a siege".

Sure, but it does not apply to the battle of Kiyv in any way. As you see, the necessary condition for a siege is a 'blockade'. — Jabberwock

The Russians are definitely blockading Kiev by the process of encircling it and cutting off most roads to Kiev.

Your complaint is that the siege is not entirely complete or not entirely successful, which is fine, a siege does not require perfection or then a siege must be successful to be a siege. Which is simply not the case.

It's honestly a strange obsession of yours to refuse to characterize something that is so obviously a siege as a siege.

I am sure you have no problem watering down your arguments to the point that they do not resemble what you have previously argued for, in order to maintain the illusion you were somehow right. — Jabberwock

The issues of contention in this particular part of the debate is:

1. Incompetence, as expressed by Jabberwock explicitly stating:

As far as I can see the common charge is incompetence, not irrationality. — Echarmion

2. Whether the intention of the Russians was to take and occupy Kiev, as expressed by you stating:

It needs to be pointed out that the whole theory of 'just threatening Kiyv' with an army that was supposedly obviously and clearly incapable of threatening Kiyv, is simply incoherent. — Jabberwock

I, and also @Tzeentch, explain why the Russian actions are neither incompetent nor incoherent, that they make sense and achieve plenty of military objectives while also applying pressure on Kiev to accept peace terms (which clearly does not happen), to which you reply to these points with the straw man that:

Yes, the southern campaign was much more successful. What is remarkable, and rather ridiculous, is the need of some people to paint any Russian failure (because the northern WAS a failure, by any reasonable means) as some kind of cunning Russian plan, in spite of quite obvious facts. — Jabberwock

No where do I say the Northern operation is some "kind of cunning Russian plan".

What are the obvious facts:

1. The Russian military operation as a whole secures the land bridge to Crimea and the Northern operation clearly contributes to the military success in the South by diverting Ukrainian resources and attention.

2. Russia does not commit the troops necessary to conquer Kiev in Urban combat and occupy the city.

From this we can conclude that insofar as the Northern operation was designed as a fixing operation to be sure to take critical strategic targets in the South, it is a success.

Insofar as it is designed to pressure Kiev into accepting a quick peace, it is a failure.

Nowhere do I say the Northern operation is entirely successful. When I explain one purpose of the Northern operation is to pressure Kiev into accepting peace terms, I am very well aware that did not happen and the war continues.

Likewise, no where do I state that the Russian actions represent the best possible strategy. Perhaps things would have gone better for the Russians without the Northern operation, or then perhaps they would have been bogged down in trench warfare trying to break through the Donbas and their columns would have never left Crimea as Ukraine would have done the obvious thing of blowing up the bridges and digging in to prevent that from happening if they were free to focus on what is happening in the South.

The position I am defending is that the Russian plan makes sense and achieves some critical military objectives.

I state clearly that I do not know what probability the Kremlin assigned to Kiev completely capitulating or then accepting peace terms early on, but what is clear is that preparations are made for that not happening and the major military focus is placed on securing critical gains to have "something to show for it" if there is no peace agreement.

The key paragraph to understand the report is on page 14:

Unless the United States and some NATO states actively participate in the fighting, the major variables are the time it takes the Russian military to achieve these aims and the cost it will have to pay in blood and equipment. The outcome of the initial fighting itself is not in doubt.

Reports of the plan and most discussions of the invasion stop at this point. — Report in question

The report explains the narrative in the media of what Putin is allegedly planning to do, and notes that the analysis then just stops at "Russia wins".

However, the author then explain how the alleged plan makes absolutely no sense if it were to be executed. Russia does not have enough troops to occupy all of Ukraine, nor the troops for massive urban combat in multiple cities, and even if cities would surrender as desired (which the author finds exceedingly unlikely), Ukrainians would very likely then conduct an insurgency and trying to do this thing of full scale conquest, even if initially successful, would not achieve any political objectives; it would be just attempting to conquer Ukraine for the sake of it and then have massive problems to deal with.

So either Putin is irrational or then whether intentional or not, Western media plays into what the actual plan is: a fixing operation in the North while the South-East (a feasible objective that serves a strategic purpose and conquers Russian speakers that are easier to pacify) is achieved, which is what happens. Also of note, many parts of the alleged plan do not ever happen, such as an amphibious assault on Odessa.

If the report is read carefully, the only military objective that is feasible with the forces under consideration is taking the land bridge to Crimea / Kherson ... which is what ultimately happens.

For example:

However, the deployment of man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) at scale would pose a considerable challenge to Russia’s ability to flow supplies and reinforcements in by air until they established a wide perimeter around the airfield and along the landing approaches to it. — the report

To explain (one of many reasons) why taking Odessa in an amphibious assault would be exceedingly difficult.

Furthermore, the noted effect of MANPADS is what happens in the actual war, forcing Russian air power to stand-off positions, and so would have basically stranded any landing party trying to take Odessa in a full scale invasion as explained ... which maybe explains why that didn't happen, but ultimately only feasible military objectives were taken and occupied long term.

Russia conducts no urban combat in the North (essential for long term occupation) again: because there is no intention to occupy the North long term is the reasonable explanation.

Yeah, and if you'd continue reading rather than take out of context the one paragraph that seemingly agrees with you, you'd notice that the report is laying out exactly the plan Jabberwock and me consider to have been the likely intent. — Echarmion

What are you talking about? Are you unable to read??

The report literally starts by stating that conquering all of Ukraine is basically impossible if you take a closer look but Putin may conquer South East Ukraine ... which is what happens.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is amassing a large force near the Ukrainian border and reportedly has a military plan to invade and conquer most of unoccupied Ukraine. Western leaders are rightly taking the threat of such an invasion very seriously, and we cannot dismiss the possibility that Putin will order his military to execute it. However, the close look at what such an invasion would entail presented in this report and the risks and costs Putin would have to accept in ordering it leads us to forecast that he is very unlikely to launch an invasion of unoccupied Ukraine this winter. Putin is much more likely to send Russian forces into Belarus and possibly overtly into Russian-occupied Donbas. He might launch a limited incursion into unoccupied southeastern Ukraine that falls short of a full-scale invasion. — Literally the first paragraph of the report in question

Now, the report uses the term "invasion" to mean intent to fully conquer Ukraine, and "limited incursion" for doing something like take a land bridge to Crimea.

I would not use this terminology as clearly invading anywhere in a country is still an invasion, but the paper is meant for other experts and the "invasion / incursion" distinction is made clear.

It analyses what an invasion would entail and that it's basically impossible with the forces Russia has so concludes it's exceedingly unlikely ... but what Putin "might" do is "a limited incursion into unoccupied southeastern Ukraine that falls short of a full-scale invasion".

Which, if you haven't noticed, is what Putin ultimately does.

So, is 20 000 troops in Norther Ukraine really Putin ignoring the "risks and costs" and believing he can completely conquer Kiev and all of Ukraine with 20 000 troops from the North ... or is the purpose of the Northern operation something that makes sense and is feasible to achieve with 20 000 troops of a fixing operation so focus is on Kiev and away from the South-East?

The end result is rational and achievable (limited incursion to establish a land bridge to Crimea) and accomplishes critical strategic objectives such as securing a long term defence of Crimea and something as trivial (in your analysis) as fresh water ... but somehow the start is irrational and the plan is to fully conquer Ukraine with 200 000 troops and only 10% of that force committed to the capital?

Why would irrational actors have rational results in a process as chaotic and complicated as a war?

What was RAND corporation saying before the war:

Alternatively, Russia might counter-escalate, committing more troops and pushing them deeper into Ukraine. Russia might even pre- empt U.S. action, escalating before any additional U.S. aid arrives. Such escalation might extend Russia; Eastern Ukraine is already a drain. Taking more of Ukraine might only increase the burden, albeit at the expense of the Ukrainian people. However, such a move might also come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace.

Some analysts maintain that Russia lacks the resources to escalate the conflict. Ivan Medynskyi of the Kyiv-based Institute for World Policy argued, “War is expensive. Falling oil prices, economic decline, sanctions, and a campaign in Syria (all of which are likely to continue in 2016) leave little room for another large-scale military maneuver by Russia.”22 According to this view, Russia simply cannot afford to maintain a proxy war in Ukraine, although, given Russia’s size and the importance it places on Ukraine, this might be an overly optimistic assumption.

There is also some risk of weapons supplied to the Ukrainians winding up in the wrong hands. A RAND study conducted for the President of Ukraine found reasons for concern about the potential misuse of Western military aid. While Ukraine has been tarred by Russian propaganda claims that it mishandled Western military aid, the RAND team also found that “Ukraine’s paper systems for tracking equipment are outdated and vulnerable to corruption.”23 Moreover, the RAND team also expressed concern that, absent reforms to Ukraine’s defense industry, Western military equipment might be reverse- engineered and enter the international market in competition with U.S. suppliers. — Extending Russia - RAND Corporation

RAND essentially argues against what the US policy ultimately does:

The conclusion of the brief of their report on extending Russia is:

Thus, besides the specific risks associated with each option, there is additional risk attached to a generally intensified competition with a nuclear-armed adversary to consider. This means that every option must be deliberately planned and carefully calibrated to achieve the desired effect. Finally, although Russia will bear the cost of this increased competition less easily than the United States will, both sides will have to divert national resources from other purposes. Extending Russia for its own sake is not a sufficient basis in most cases to consider the options discussed here. Rather, the options must be considered in the broader context of national policy based on defense, deterrence, and—where U.S. and Russian interests align—cooperation. — Overextending and Unbalancing Russia, Brief - RAND corporation

The whole idea that Russia was expected to easily win is total mythical fabrication that was created after Russias initial success that saw some of the fastest armour advances in all of history so did seem (to lay people who have no clue) that Ukraine was collapsing and Russia was easily going to take the whole country.

However, anyone who has experience of soldiery or done honest study of war could easily point out that sustaining such advances at the same rate is logistically impossible, that Ukraine is huge and cannot possibly be overrun entirely in a matter of days or weeks, that one part of the Ukraine built up defences in the South collapsed but other parts didn't move at all, and that US intelligence capabilities is a massive advantage in coordinating a defence, Ukraine has hundreds of thousands of troops and many hundreds of thousands more that can be mobilized etc.

Therefore, when Ukraine arrests the initial invasion / Russia reaches logistical limits, it seems like a great and unforeseen victory and we can all enter magical thinking land where it will be easy to defeat the Russians and no need to ever negotiate!! Hurrah!!

Of course, arresting the initial invasion does not mean being poised to win the war, even if completely uncontested Russia could not occupy all of Ukraine with 200 000 troops.

What ultimately occurs was not unexpected. Ukrainians will likely fight back; that's what they've been preparing for and training for and what soldiers are conditioned to do. Ukraine can resist ... for a time. Russia has certainly the capacity to achieve some objectives (such as the land bridge to Crimea), but not all. The war could last but Russia has a heavy advantage.

We've discussed this already at length, what experts were saying before the war:

Likewise, article also gets right:
Likely Ukrainian Initial Responses to Full-Scale Invasion

"The Ukrainian military will almost certainly fight against such an invasion, for which it is now preparing.19 Whatever doubts and reservations military personnel might have about their leaders or their prospects, the appearance of enemy mechanized columns driving into one’s country tends to concentrate thought and galvanize initial resistance. It collapses complexities and creates binary choices. Military officers and personnel are conditioned to choose to fight in such circumstances, and usually do, at least at first. There is no reason to think the Ukrainian military will perform differently in this case."

— PUTIN’S MILITARY OPTIONS — boethius

This is from conversation here nearly two years ago.

Of course, boethius knows, but people for example in the White House had "zero clue". :roll: — ssu

He is saying the same thing as I just said, that Ukraine can put up fierce resistance but

The Ukrainians have learned an enormous amount, but the advantage is still heavily in Russia's favor,

So you're talking about a scenario where there could be heavier casualties, but the outcome doesn't really change. — what SSU literally just cited

Their helicopter and jet fleet could be essentially "wiped out quickly" (which is essentially what happens and the West needs to scrounge up MIGs from elsewhere).

The author is not explaining how Ukraine will collapse in a matter of days but that Ukraine has "learned a lot" and does have fighting potential, just that Russia has a heave advantage and fighting the Russians will result in heavy casualties that does not ultimately change the outcome.

This is pretty much what all the analysts were saying before the war: that Ukraine can put up a fight, they do have hundreds of thousands of soldiers, a lot of equipment, and an immense territory.

Now, where analysts said Ukraine would lose relatively soon was in the context of zero support from the West, which I think we all agree here that if the West did not intervene Ukraine could not have lasted this long (at least in terms of conventional military fighting).

Hence you are simply wrong in saying that "people who have no clue" making these pessimistic predictions. People simply thought that the Russian army was way more better than it was in 2022. — ssu

The average public indeed have zero clue, the Russian invasion was ultimately arrested by massive support from the West.

This is the mythology, that somehow the small country of Ukraine that has basically no army and should be easy for Russia to simply knock over in a few days, somehow beat the odds and it therefore must be due to Russian incompetence and weakness, rather than massive support and intervention from the West (weapons systems, intelligence capabilities, finance of the entire Ukrainian military and government).

Of course, the West did not intervene enough to actually threaten a Russian defeat, and therefore, like the author you cite notes, the outcome does not ultimately change.

What is interesting here is that despite the Russian military clearly not being incompetent, achieving and then securing against Ukraine's much advertised offensive, critical strategic ground, effectively destroying not only Ukraines Soviet equipment but a large part of the entire regions, and now destroying Western armour in large quantities, there is still this adherence to what should by now be obvious propaganda.

Propaganda that was critical to justify Ukraine repudiating any negotiation and promising the World victory over the Russians.

Which now we're told was never "really a thing" just something people say to motivate the troops to fight to a better negotiation position that no one can explain how Ukraine's current negotiation position is remotely improved in anyway compared to the start of the war.

My god you have completely lost it. — Echarmion

Russia has now more soldiers and more experienced and battle hardened soldiers and have learned how to effectively employ combined arms at scale (which they did not have experience with until this war, but only on a much more limited scale) as well as integration with drones. This kind of war makes an army (especially the one that wins) far more dangerous than at the start.

In parallel, Russia has greatly increased arms production.

Of course, a lot of capacity is continuously destroyed in Ukraine, but as soon as the war ends there will be a significant arms built up as well as availability for export.

I think the total destruction of Ukraine is out of the question now. — ssu

I agree that Russia does not intend to conquer all of Ukraine in any case, and "losing the war" for Ukraine means losing significant territory.

hat Ukraine would defend itself like this wasn't before anticipated, after all the US offered Zelensky a way out (meaning they estimated Kyiv would fall in days). Now that has changed. — ssu

Not anticipated by anyone who doesn't follow the analysis of this kind of thing, but there was plenty of analysis made before the war that the maximalist war aims of Russia would be taking the land bridge all the way to the Dnieper and Russia did not have the forces available to conquer all of Ukraine and also noting Ukraine has a sizeable army, battle hardened by 8 years of war in the Donbas, has advantage in defending, and is not a trivial army to defeat.

Since most people have zero clue about anything, the Western media quickly took advantage of people's perception of Ukraine as some small and backward Eastern European state that should be easy for "the Red army" (the term even being used from time to time, but I mean here to refer to people's perceptions) to topple over. Creating the myth of Russian incompetence was absolutely essential to establish the logic of refusing all negotiation. If analysts and officials admitted that Russia clearly had a sensible plan and conquered a lot of territory in the South that would be extremely difficult for Ukraine to re-conquer if the Russians had a minimum of sense and experience in warfare (which it turns out they do), then this would have severely undermined the momentum for fighting without any clear end state or viable path to victory.

Now that has changed. I think the Western aid will be to at least enough for Ukraine to defend, it won't be enough to push Russia totally out. What basically Putin can do is sit behind the Suvorov-line and the make limited counterattacks. — ssu

I would agree Ukraine could have certainly been able to defend had they been on the defensive and pulling back whenever positions got compromised.

However, since Ukraine defends political symbols and then even more foolishly attacks Russian fortifications, it's possible Ukraine has expended also its capacity for defence and may experience total military collapse.

In my view Russia does not want to conquer all of Ukraine, but total collapse of the front lines would mean Russia taking whatever it does want.

So I agree Ukraine won't be destroyed, but the main reason for this in my view is that Russia does not intend to completely conquer Ukraine (would be simply a long term liability, rather than Russian speaking regions with valuable resources which are long term assets).

Yet basically after the Ukraine war either halts or goes truly to the frozen conflict mode, then in few years Russia will have built back it's capability. — ssu

Russia's war fighting capability is likely far higher now than at the start of the war.

Since this war and now the war in Gaza and general instability has made the world a far dangerous place, as soon as the war ends my prediction is not only will the Russian military be at essentially a climax of war fighting capability but it will find a hungry market to absorb the massive arms manufacturing pace the war has created.

Not everyone is a friend of the US, as surprising as that may seem to some, and everyone else will be buying battle tested arms from Russia at the high levels of production Russia has built up: this will fuel more wars around the globe.

As our environment degrades and the world starts to feel the pain, the cure for our woes will be the traditional one. Modernity, I would wager, was but a brief delirium between our fits of trembling and fever.

Where you are wrong:

Let's start with the shelling industrial targets which was widely reported but you seem to want to deny:

Note though that this particular article unfortunately labels most air and missile attacks as 'shelling', which is rather misleading. — Jabberwock

The article in question reported both shelling and missile attacks ... perhaps because there was both shelling and missile attacks.

Here is a Ukrainian publication citing directly the original source of the municipal government:

Russian artillery has struck the Antonov factory in Kyiv, the municipal government said in a message on the Telegram messaging service on March 14.

Antonov is a state-owned aerospace and defense concern, famous for producing the AN-225 Mriya aircraft, the largest in the world prior to its destruction by Russian shelling. — Russia shells Antonov factory in Kyiv

Clearly the Russians shelled industrially valuable targets during their Northern operation and this would clearly be one positive outcome for the Russians in conducting said operation. Shelling is much cheaper than standoff air attacks, cruise missiles or drones.

No, the Wikipedia does not say the 'siege' lasted in that period, in fact it did not use that term at all (only you and the sensationalist press insist on using that term, clearly not understanding what it actually means). — Jabberwock

Directly from the Wikipedia article:

Estonian Defence Forces intelligence chief Margo Grosberg estimated that the advancing Russian convoy would arrive to Kyiv's outer suburbs in at least two days, after which they would try to lay siege to the city. — Battle of Kyiv

You have the wikipedia article citing a military expert (assuming intelligence chiefs have some expertise) using the word siege to describe Russias operation.

Now, if you want to say the siege is not entirely successful and not very long, I have no issue with that, but the word siege is still perfectly suitable to describe Russia getting to and then attempting to surround the city. They are sieging the city.

Since you are happy to use Wikipedia as an authority, under the heading "Post-World War II":

The siege of Khe Sanh displays typical features of modern sieges, as the defender has greater capacity to withstand the siege, the attacker's main aim is to bottle operational forces or create a strategic distraction, rather than take the siege to a conclusion. — Siege - Wikipedia

It is not sensationalist to describe an army getting to and nearly entirely encircling a city as "a siege", which the same Wikipedia article defines as:

A siege is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. — Siege

Which, ironically, you are making exactly he point that the intention of the Russians is to conquer Kiev by "well prepared assault".

Point is, an army gets to a city, starts to surround the city, people living in the subway: fits the definition of a siege.

If the purpose of the Northern operation was to apply political pressure for a peace deal, then running away in the middle of negotiations might not be the best way to do it, in my personal opinion. To cite Peskov: — Jabberwock

I'd have no problem accepting that the Ukrainian resistance is indeed more effective than the Russians expect, and especially the impact of the most advanced Western shoulder launched missiles flooding into the country that equip extremely effective harassing units, and they retreat due to being unable to maintain the siege with the forces they commit.

They achieve key objectives in the meanwhile in the South, so cut their losses and evacuate the North.

As I mention, one con of this strategy is that if there is no quick peace deal and the Norther operation can't be sustained, then retreating will simply encourage the Ukrainians to fight more. So in terms of achieving a quick peace it is a gamble, but if it allows taking the South nearly uncontested (what happens) then if the peace gamble fails then at least there is something to show for the war effort as a whole.

I am not arguing the push to Kiev is some brilliant move that has only positive consequences. There are clearly pros and cons.

However, there are pros and cons, risks and advantages, to every strategy. If Russia only focused on the South, maybe Ukraine would have put up much fiercer resistance, broken the siege at Mariupol at least long enough to heroically evacuate Azov battalion, and the Russian military position would be much worse and that would simply encourage Ukraine to keep fighting.

The logic behind the multi-front war knowing ahead of time there is only resources to sustain the Southern front I would speculate has two foundations:

First, chaos and focus in the North will indeed allow conquering the south to be far easier and so if there's no peace then at least the critical strategic objective is achieved of the land bridge to Crimea and the Kremlin has "something to show for it" even if retreating in the North will be embarrassing on the moment.

Second, historically peace agreements are arrived at very quickly after fighting starts or then wars drag on for quite some time. So, based on historical precedent, if peace is not achieved in the first days and weeks of fighting, probably it won't happen in the short term, so the Russian actions apply maximum pressure at the start and if it does work then they'll fight the long war in the South.

So either Russians cunningly planned to weaken their position in the middle of negotiations or simply had no other choice, because their blitz attempt to take the city failed and they have outstreched their GLOC to the extent that further holding them was untenable. There are many facts that point toward the latter. — Jabberwock

They may have received intelligence or otherwise concluded that Ukraine will not be accepting peace a deal. As I say above, Ukraine may have simply been effective at arresting Russias advance and harassing the Russian supply lines and they are unable to sustain their positions.

Additionally, once Russia has what they want in the South, it maybe perfectly acceptable to the Kremlin that the war continue and they keep their gains. Anyone with an imperialist mindset in the Kremlin will rather the war continue than Ukraine accept the peace deal on offer and be given back all the territory.

If critical positions are achieved in the South, the it would be reasonable to argue that pulling back in the North is militarily the right move, and if Ukraine does not want peace then they shall have war.

Things can be quite complicated, but overall, clearly the Russian military achieves critical objectives with their plan and execution, so they are neither irrational nor incompetent.

This seems less a prediction and more an unshakeable conviction, which is why any discussion with you about reality on the ground just runs in circles. — Echarmion

No, it's called a prediction. Being confident in a prediction, such as the sun will rise tomorrow as it did today, does not take away from its predictive essence.

If the war ends with a deal better than what the Russians were offering both before and immediately following the invasion, then indeed Ukraine has at least achieved better terms of land or other things for all the blood sacrificed.

If the war ends with Russia retaining, even expanding upon, the territory it already occupies then I don't see how anyone could argue Ukraine fought to a superior negotiating position.

Or do you disagree with this diagnostic procedure?

I am perfectly aware of what you were arguing for. You have claimed that the nothern campaign was successful two-month siege of Kiyv that was supposed only to exert political pressure and never intended to take Kiyv, so it was deliberately concluded by Russians when the talks fell through. — Jabberwock

The siege lasted "lasted from 25 February 2022 to 2 April 2022" (to cite Wikipedia), so lasted more than the entire month of March, but true it is closer to 1 month than 2, however the context of the point was simply that the incursion allows Russia to shell many things around the capital and is one "pro" of the operation.

As important to my argument as negotiations obviously not succeeding and pretty bad signs such as negotiators being shot:

Clashing reports emerged Saturday surrounding the death of a Ukrainian identified by media as a member of the country’s negotiating team with Russia.

First, widespread reports in local media and social media throughout the day claimed Denis Kireev, who had been photographed taking part in negotiations in Belarus in recent days, had been killed by Ukrainian security forces during an attempt to arrest him.

Kireev, the reports asserted, had been suspected of treason. — Reports claim Ukraine negotiator shot for treason - Times of Israel

Is that Mariupol was effectively occupied by the end of March:

On 28 March, Mayor Vadym Boychenko said "we are in the hands of the occupiers today" in a televised interview,[182] and a spokesman for the Mariupol mayor's office announced that "nearly 5,000 people" had been killed in the city since the start of the siege.[183][184][185] The Ukrainian government estimated that "from 20,000 to 30,000" Mariupol residents had been forcibly sent[186] to camps in Russia[163] under Russian military control.[186] During the day, Russian forces seized the administrative building in the northern Kalmiuskyi District[13] and the military headquarters of the Azov Regiment.[187] The next day, Russian forces were reported to have likely divided Ukrainian troops in the city into two and possibly even three pockets.[188] — Siege of Mariupol - Wikipedia

And therefore, if the purpose of the Northern operation was to apply political pressure for a peace deal as well as divert Ukrainian forces while the South is being taken, then the time line of the Russians retreating from the North essentially immediately following the largest Urban centre in the South falling is pretty good support for my argument.

What Russian military commanders would have feared is an operation to relieve the forces in Mariupol either by reaching Mariupol or then allowing for the Ukrainian forces to break out and reach some Ukrainian Salient coming towards them (heroic deeds for the Ukrainians and an embarrassment for the Russians, and also losing the value of capturing a bunch of Azov guys).

So, once critical milestone is reached such as effectively securing the largest Ukrainian Urban centre in the south, then it makes sense to withdraw from the North (which is in anywise undermanned in a fixing operation and cannot last indefinitely) to solidify gains in the South: exactly what the Russians do.

If Russia intended to take and occupy Kiev then they would have committed far more troops and engaged in the kind of urban combat they do in Mariupol.

It's pretty common sense along with the fact that entire 200 000 troops Russia devotes to invading Ukraine could all be insufficient to occupy and pacify a hostile population the size of Kiev; so your theory involves the Russians trying to accomplish something that is commonly accepted wisdom in military schools to be impossible to do with the numbers the Russians have (and that's assuming they have zero losses, their entire force may still be insufficient to occupy and pacify Kiev ... and there would still be Ukrainian "resistance" throughout the rest of the country "doing stuff").

I think it all depends on what assumptions the planners were making. — Echarmion

I agree that Putin et. al. may have believed in a quick and easy victory, either confident in their cunning or then underestimating both the Ukrainians and the CIA. However, the plan the implement clearly prepares for things taking longer and being more difficult and more expensive: otherwise you don't amass hundreds of billions of USD worth of reserves and bullion and you don't put so much effort into being sure to take the land bridge (such as a sophisticated signals and intelligence operation resulting in uncontested advances; Kherson being the most notable in not only taking the city uncontested but bridges across the Dnieper).

Clearly Russia had an immense geographical and political advantage, being able to attack Ukraine at will from several directions with zero fear of a preliminary disruption.

Clearly also Russia had the clear material advantage, and could reasonably assume to have air supremacy as well as a significant advantage in armored vehicles and an overwhelming advantage in artillery pieces. — Echarmion

Despite these advantages, Ukraine still has hundreds of thousands of troops and hundreds thousands more that can be mobilized and a huge area to operate on.

If Russia takes advantage of the massive border to make essentially uncontested advances (what happens) that creates deep salients that are vulnerable to harassment or even being cut off once Ukraine organizes to arrest the advances; to prevent harassment would require widening the salient significantly which in turn requires significantly more troops to take urban centres in difficult Urban combat and then effectively occupy and pacify these regions. To accomplish this in Northern Ukraine would require hundreds of thousands of additional troops; likely more troops than Russia has in its standing army (as the region is intensely hostile; it's far easier to accomplish in Russian speaking regions in the South, which may explain Russias decision to occupy there, in addition to the land bridge to Crimea and securing fresh water to Crimea being of critical strategic importance, in addition to the mineral resources and industrial capacity).

Russia simply does not have the numbers to occupy all of Ukraine or even a relatively small hostile part of it. A basic rule of thumb to be sure to pacify a population is requiring between 10 and 20 soldiers per 100 inhabitants; 10 being probably certain to achieve pacification and 20 being probably insufficient if the population is hostile (these numbers are often cited to explain why the US fails to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan).

Based on such received wisdom, Russia would need millions of troops to occupy and pacify all of Ukraine. Russia could do it, but it would be incredibly costly in terms of direct costs and consequence for the Russian economy as well as not be worth much. The land bridge to Crimea, the entirety of the Azov sea, securing fresh water to Crimea and an additional defensive buffer zone, all the resources there (from an imperial perspective) are "worth" a cost to pay. As it stands, the Russian plan has secured plenty of valuable assets, whereas occupying all of Ukraine would be an immense liability and be completely unworkable long term.

@Tzeentch has explained this several times but above is further elaboration of why Russia likely has no interest in occupying Kiev much less all of Ukraine.

Overambitious military campaigns have been waged with far less obvious advantages. Indeed if you read military history, the amount of people who have been killed by overconfidence and wishful thinking is staggering. — Echarmion

My prediction is this statement will prove to be far more truth for the Ukrainians than the Russians. We'll see how the war ends which side died more on the strength of wishes than sober analysis.

There was never any doubt that the war could only end in some negotiated peace. But the conditions of said peace will always depend on the situation on the ground. — Echarmion

Well the situation on the ground is that Ukraine has not taken back any significant territory for essentially a year in which to affect the negotiation table, and if Ukraine is losing the war of attrition and reaching its limits in terms of man power then their position is even worse as they cannot credibly threaten to prolong the war and credibly threaten significant damage to the Russians (the major leverage a smaller power has in fighting a larger power: that continued may damage themselves but will be costly to the larger power also).

Since we're on a philosophy forum, perhaps we should ask the question in terms of moral philosophy: Is the moral choice to give up and negotiate a peace immediately? How much of a chance of success do you need to morally send soldiers to their deaths in a war? — Echarmion

It depends what the peace deal is.

What I would argue is immoral is simply throwing your hands in the air and refusing to negotiate at all. If the war must end in a negotiated peace at one point or another, then at every point in time there is a deal that exists that is reasonable to take. Ok, perhaps it is not on offer, but you cannot know what deal you can achieve if you don't make an honest effort to negotiate. If the initial offer is too high to accept, well maybe your counter party is starting high to then settle somewhere in the middle; you have to actually make counter proposals that are acceptable to yourself in order to see where your counterparty is willing to meet you: this is what Ukraine does not do, the Russians propose something and Ukraine does not bother to even make a counter proposal.

The point of maximum leverage for a smaller power is at the start of the war and being able to credibly threaten a long and costly war as well as all sorts of unknowns not only in the war itself but external events (some other crisis may emerge for the larger power, so all these risks need to be priced into the situation). Of course, the point of maximum leverage does not mean your counter party sees it that leverage and responds accordinly, but it's when you have maximum leverage that you want to push for the best deal you can easily achieve.

Of course, any peace deal would involve compromise and the West immediately framed things as any compromise would be a "win" for Putin, rather than a rational framework where there is some acceptable compromise that is not a win for Putin but as much a compromise for the Russians as for the West and Ukraine, and most importantly avoids immense and prolonged bloodshed, suffering, global food price increases and a global schism in economic and political cooperation.

Russia could have mounted a tidal wave offensive and rolled through had it the momentum of morale and purpose on their side. — Vaskane

You're very late to the discussion, all these points have been discussed already at length, but the 200 000 troops Russia committed to invading Ukraine are not remotely enough for some sort of total wave offensive.

Russia could have mobilized millions of troops and done what you say, but that would have very likely been both a social and economic disaster and result in years of insurgency and inability to occupy and pacify all of Ukraine.

Russia's war aims are clearly what is achievable without sacrificing the entire economy by mobilizing millions of people to dedicate to years of occupation, which is occupying the areas of Ukraine that are Russian speaking and partial to Russian rule. Crimea has been occupied by Russia since 2014 and there has not been any insurgency because Crimeans are the large majority Russian speakers that all evidence we have genuinely wanted to reunite with Russia.

The idea that Russia could have easily just "tidal waved" Ukraine (the largest country in Europe with the largest army, supported by US / NATO training and intelligence, preparing for exactly this war for 8 years) is just foolish.

It's a foolish mythology that was required to justify refusing peace talks altogether which was completely irrational without the belief that Russia was somehow incompetent and easy to beat. Any rational actor who cannot simply impose their will by force, will at least see what the other side is offering and try to negotiate an acceptable deal (now, maybe no acceptable deal would have been reached if negotiations continued, but you cannot know that if you don't try).

Now that it is revealed Russia is not easy to beat, suddenly even the Western media is reporting Ukraine has "pressure" to negotiate. Which is the obvious end to this and extremely tragic (at least for Ukraine) as there is no way to get a better deal than what they could have negotiated at the start of the war and there's no way to get the hundreds of thousands of dead back to life.

The thing is that nobody denies that Russians got a lot of territory and put Ukrainians in difficult situation. — Jabberwock

... People definitely seem to be denying exactly that:

As far as I can see the common charge is incompetence, not irrationality. — Echarmion

But if we agree the Russian plan isn't incompetent then that's progress in the debate.

Yes, the southern campaign was much more successful. What is remarkable, and rather ridiculous, is the need of some people to paint any Russian failure (because the northern WAS a failure, by any reasonable means) as some kind of cunning Russian plan, in spite of quite obvious facts. In arguing for that some people even go as far as make up their own 'facts', such as 'two-month shelling of Kiyv' or 'siege of Kiyv lasting longer than the siege of Mariupol'. Unfortunately for them, such facts are quite easy to check and correct. — Jabberwock

Neither I nor @Tzeentch are arguing it's some brilliant military move, but rather a very ordinary military move. Occupying the enemy with an attack in one place in order to advance in another place is extremely banal military tactic.

And you miss entirely the point, Russia does not need to brilliantly out maneuver or out perform Ukraine, they only need to be remotely close to parity.

Russia has won some battles, Ukraine has won some battles, if it's remotely close to parity then Russia is on the path to victory as they can absorb more losses.

If having capabilities Ukraine lacks entirely, such as significant air power and electronic warfare, gives Russia a better than parity performance (on the whole) then Russian victory is even easier.

Of course, one can argue the Russian population will turn against the war before some sort of military victory emerges. This was the theory at the start of the war, but few people argue it now.

Likewise, one can argue that perhaps Russia will win but the cost is not worth it on some given scale of evaluation.

As several have argued, Ukraine losing is ok as the war damages Russia. Of course, that's terrible for Ukraine and not morally acceptable Western policy for me personally; I also have my doubts whether the war is actually weakening Russia.

What is of interest in the debate about the "Russian competence" in attacking Kiev or retreating from Kherson / Kharkiv (from my point of view) is the mythological role this idea played in encouraging Ukraine to refuse peace negotiations, which if Ukraine cannot "win" (which seems common wisdom now) was a foolish decision (if you care about lives and even Ukrainian territory as Russia was offering to give it back in exchange for a quick termination of the war).

However, if we agree Russia's plan makes sense and was executed with basic competence, I am not trying to argue they are brilliant or over-performing the Ukrainians.

For the purpose of understanding the current situation, one need only believe performance is somewhat close to parity to conclude, as you say, Ukraine is in a difficult position as, by definition, the smaller party will lose a war of attrition at parity.

I strongly suspect Russia has been able to inflict several factors greater losses on the Ukrainians due to their having significant air power and electronic warfare, but I'm not trying to convince anyone of that and we'll have a better idea of losses on both sides after the war. Rather, my basic point, is that very strong evidence would be needed to believe that despite significant air superiority and having more of essentially every kind of capability, that somehow Ukraine is inflicting several factors greater losses on Russian forces.

Accepting such basic facts, how long Ukraine (and Western supporters) can last, and will Russian be able to match that in resolve, and if Russia does have an advantage (now or at some point) due can it translate that into decisive manoeuvres (encircling large Ukrainian formation, taking bridges etc.), are all questions open for debate.

@ssu is confident Ukraine can last many years. I have serious doubts that's possible at the current intensity, but is possible by retreating to more easily defendable positions or then simply territory Russia doesn't want to occupy, and then you'd have an actual frozen conflict. However, if the conflict is actually frozen with few attacks and casualties on each side, Russia would have no reason to randomly go home either. This would be the "rump state" Mearsheimer talks about.

Wars of attrition are not fought to the last man standing, they are fought till one side loses the will to fight and disengages — RogueAI

Well if we agree that the current fighting is attritional, then tiring out the Russians is a much better strategy than throwing battalions at heavily fortified positions based on the entirely delusional belief that it was possible to push the Russians out of Southern Ukraine.

Certainly larger armies have simply tired out and gone home in the past.

However, unlike the US in Vietnam or the Soviet Union in Afghanistan ... or the US in Afghanistan, there are far more reasons for Russians to fight in Ukraine. There's also some critical structural differences between those wars, mainly that it requires far more finance to support Ukraine than the Taliban or the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. Insurgency is also common to these examples but not so present in South Ukraine.

I would definitely agree that Russia tiring out would be certainly a possibility after years and years of fighting, but I'm arguing here Ukraine (and Western supporters) can't sustain years at this level of intensity.

This is also a suitable time to remind everyone here that as I predicted at the start of the war, the advanced hand held missile systems supplied to Ukraine will go straight into the hands of terrorists.

On October 27th a number of Middle East outlets reported that during anti-HAMAS operations in and around Gaza IDF uncovered caches of European and US-made military hardware (АТ-4, NLAW rocket launchers) supposedly originated from Ukraine.

Several sources have confirmed that around 2022 HAMAS and Hezbollah have established a clandestine supply line from Ukraine to Lebanon, Iraq and supposedly Syria to deliver shipments of weapons from Ukrainian military warehouses in Lviv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Khmelnytskyi, and Chernihiv regions. This supply line is operational since 2022. For the past year thanks to this supply line HAMAS obtained an unidentified number of MG3 machineguns, M72 LAW grenade launchers, at least 50 units of Javelin FGM-148 ATGM, several dozens of MILAN ATGM, 20 units of Stinger FIM-92 MANPADS, 20 units of L118 towed howitzers, 30 unites of Switchblade drones, about 100 of Phoenix Ghost Drones and approx 50 Black Hornet Nano reconnaissance drones. — Hamas sourcing weapons in Ukraine

The next Pikachu face moment will be when these advanced compact missile systems are used on European soil both for terrorist and criminal purposes.

And we may even experience actual undesired terrorism, not just terrorism that "just so happens" to serve existing Western policy objectives.

Here are the key points from the latest Time update on the war, just without a paywall:

Yet Zelensky’s belief in ultimate victory over Russia has only “hardened into a form that worries some of his advisors,” according to Shuster, who describes Zelensky’s faith as “immovable, verging on the messianic.” One of Zelensky’s closest aides tells Shuster that, “He is delusional. We’re out of options. We’re not winning. But try telling him that.” This of course runs counter to all the propaganda pumped out by Ukraine and repeated by Western media sources. But increasingly it’s only Zelensky who still believes his own press clippings. — Zelensky: TIME may be on his side, but real time, isn't Zelensky: TIME may be on his side, but real time, isn't

Staggering casualties have decimated the Ukrainian army. Ukraine has refused to disclose casualty counts throughout the war, dismissing the increasingly-credible reports of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian casualties as Russian propaganda. But another close aide to Zelensky tells Shuster that casualties are so horrific that “even if the U.S. and its allies come through with all the weapons they have pledged, ‘we don’t have the men to use them.’” — Zelensky: TIME may be on his side, but real time, isn't Zelensky: TIME may be on his side, but real time, isn't

Conscription policies are draconian. Another fact dismissed as a “Putin talking point” is that Ukrainians have had to resort to ever-more draconian conscription policies to replenish their military’s ranks. Shuster lays out the unpleasant reality: “New recruitment is way down. As conscription efforts have intensified across the country, stories are spreading on social media of draft officers pulling men off trains and buses and sending them to the front. Those with means sometimes bribe their way out of service, often by paying for a medical exemption.” The corruption became so widespread that Zelensky fired the heads of all the regional draft offices in August, but the move backfired as lack of leadership brought new recruitment nearly to a halt. — Zelensky: TIME may be on his side, but real time, isn't Zelensky: TIME may be on his side, but real time, isn't

Morale is collapsing. Even patriots don’t want to die serving as canon fodder for a doomed military strategy. Within the officer ranks, there is growing dissension bordering on mutiny. — Zelensky: TIME may be on his side, but real time, isn't Zelensky: TIME may be on his side, but real time, isn't

Corruption is uncontrollable. It has long been a “Putin talking point” that Ukraine’s government was shot through with corruption. And yet Zelensky has been getting an earful about exactly that from its U.S. and NATO allies, who don’t want to see their billions of dollars in aid disappear into the pockets of corrupt officials. — Zelensky: TIME may be on his side, but real time, isn't Zelensky: TIME may be on his side, but real time, isn't

In particular the point about casualties is the main determining factor.

To win a war of attrition with the Russians, Ukraine would need to inflict several times more casualties than it incurs; a central myth justifying rejecting peace talks but of which there was never any evidence and plenty of reason to believe it is in fact Russia inflicting heavier casualties due to having superior air power and more artillery.

That's all I'm saying, they went for a quick decapitation of the government alongside a push for a land bridge and as much coast line as they could, including Odessa which would have given them control of the 'breadbasket', a powerful lever in international relations. — unenlightened

Well we agree that Putin would have preferred total unconditional surrender, but there's really zero reason to believe Putin or anyone in Russia thought that likely. Rather, the Kremlin publicly pushes for their peace proposal of giving back the entirety of the Donbas to Ukraine, in exchange for recognizing Crimea, Ukraine staying out of NATO, and some autonomy and language protections for Russian speakers in the Donbas.

But again, that Russia prepares for 8 years and amasses a large war chest and clearly had a feasible plan to deal with "the nuclear option" of massive sanctions (as their plan clearly has worked so far) is really strong evidence the Russians don't think the task easy (else they would have done it sooner) nor that they are confident task will be quick (why prepare such a large amount of finance and gold; indeed, analysts before the war were pointing out the obvious fact that Russia was amassing large reserves precisely to be in the position to fight a big, long war, or then at least credibly threaten to in order to get the deal they want).

Without that regime change, it looks like they are now resigned to at best a frozen conflict for the indefinite future, because they still don't seem to have the numbers to occupy and subdue the whole country. — unenlightened

I guess you can use the terms "resigned to" if you want, but the conflict is not frozen for the indefinite future.

A frozen conflict is one where significant fighting ceases, such as in Korea, and there is a standoff: neither a peace agreement nor fighting and so the military conflict, in terms of fighting, is frozen.

That is not the case in Ukraine, there is intense fighting everyday, and unsustainable rates of casualties and equipment losses on both sides.

The difference is, of course, Russia is a far larger country than Ukraine and so at loss rates even somewhat close to parity, Russia will win the war of attrition.

The media doesn't stop comparing things to the trench warfare of WWI, which is a somewhat good enough analogy, but then simply jumps to the conclusion that therefore it is a frozen conflict. The front line in WWI was immobile for most of the war and most of the front, but WWI was hardly a frozen conflict and the unsustainable rates of attrition meant one side was going to win and one side was going to lose. The United States entering the war made the massive difference of available resources to one side.

What's incoherent about applying political pressure, a fixing operation, shelling targets of military value for 2 months as well as causing a flood of refugees out of Ukraine? — boethius

I literally state:

So it was not 'two-month shelling of military targets' and 'Russia sieges Kiev until Mariupol is fully taken', just two of your claims that were patently false, now it turns out it was never those things you have claimed they were! It was a 'fixing operation'! A 'diversion'! — Jabberwock

It's quite usual that large military operations accomplish several things.

It's honestly remarkable how committed people are to believing the initial Russian invasion that conquered 15% of Ukrainian territory of critical strategic importance to the long term security of Crimea, itself of critical strategic importance to the Black Sea and already housing a large Russian military base, as some sort of military catastrophe for the Russians and brilliant victory for the Ukrainians.

The Ukrainians won some battles but on the whole lost significant territory.

All nations are lands stolen and lies of the people who steal it, who cares which cat-funt of a nation is taking turns pretending they own the very nature they will eventually return to in death. — Vaskane

This is the argument in a nutshel that Kiev should have taken Russia's peace terms before or then after the war broke out: where the border is exactly has relatively little consequence on the lives of the people living in the Donbas (who no one really disputes are Russian speakers that are largely partial to Russia) whereas the war has had quite a large consequence on many people's lives far removed from the Donbas.

Except they did not commit enough resources, that is why they could not maintain the positions they took around Kiyv and had to leave quite soon after they have arrived. — Jabberwock

Again, in a fixing operation, your goal is to commit the least amount of forces needed to tie up a maximum of the opponents forces.

Even if there's no fog of war and your enemy knows you have relatively few troops in the area, they can nevertheless not be certain you will not divert more troops at any moment in a surprise push; therefore, especially is the target is critical such as the capital, sufficient resources are likely to be devoted to make a proper defence (it would be a massive gamble to bet otherwise, and even if you bet right, your enemy may see you're undermanning the defence and take advatnage). So, even if Ukraine / US intelligence, knows Russia's Northern operation is mostly about diverting the bulk of Kiev's attention and reserves to its defence, they may easily have little choice but to do so in any case (which is what actually happens).

Because in Putin's view, Zelensky is an effeminate westerner. A comedian, a joke. — Echarmion

In Putin's view Zelensky is an actor and so perhaps Putin expects it's entirely possible Zelensky plays whatever part the US wants him to play.

For example, maybe

He'd never put his life on the line. When shit hits the fan he'd turn tail and flee. Even the US apparently did not expect him to stay put, as evidenced by the "I need ammunition, not a ride" episode. — Echarmion

Is maybe called "a script" written by Western propagandists to create such a good "episode" as you call it in the Zelensky mythology.

But even if Zelensky fled, the rest of the Zelensky government (especially anything to do with defence) are right wing extremists, so there would be no reason to expect Zelensky fleeing would somehow mean Ukraine capitulating.

What troops exactly? — Echarmion

Russia could have mobilized before the war and committed literally millions of troops to conquering and occupying all of Ukraine, or then simply built up a larger standing army over the 8 years of fighting in the Donbas where it is clear a military resolution maybe required.

Russia doesn't do either of these things, but rather prepares a force that can feasibly take and hold the land bridge to Crimea, which is obviously proven by the fact that are there right now as we speak. Further military goals, such as taking Kiev, would have required far more troops or then dedicating essentially their entire force to that one objective in hopes that it ends the war.

Now, why would Russia not mobilize millions of soldiers has the obvious answer of that being disastrous economically, therefore war aims in Ukraine are limited by manpower and resources.

You're kinda answering your own question here.

Furthermore it doesn't seem like either the russian industrial base or the military establishment had actually prepared for a long war. Nor was the information space prepared. Perhaps the best example is the use of "special military operation" which certainly does not suggest a years long battle of attrition. — Echarmion

I'm answering the question of whether Putin expected a quick and easy war or then prepared for a long war, which is the topic of discussion at the moment. Building up a large war chest is a pretty strong signal of preparing for a pretty large war.

I don't know about that. After all the russian troop buildup was anything but subtle. Secrecy was clearly not the concern. I rather think that the calculus was that the constant pressure would undermine morale and lead to the planned collapse. — Echarmion

The Russian troop build up was clearly subtle enough to prevent Ukraine mobilizing and digging North of Kiev and North of Crimea.

Russia would stage a large exercise every year around Ukraine not simply to prepare for an eventual war but to make it unclear if they were actually invading or not. Many commentators were calling it mere sabre rattling and a show of force. You even had Boris Johnson assuring everyone that there wouldn't be tanks rolling across the plains of Europe, that's not going to happen.

Now, the US did publicly say Russia would invade, but this was pretty close to the actual invasion date and it may not have been feasible to mobilize, and, in anywise, Ukraine chooses not to.

As far as I can see the common charge is incompetence, not irrationality.

There's two possibilities: either Russia really planned a sweeping takeover of the country, at least to the Dnieper. In that case the plan clearly failed.

Or Russia simply made an elaborate multi front assault to have an easier time capturing a land bridge to Crimea, as well as Donetsk and Luhansk. In which case they should have had a far easier time and far less losses than they did. — Echarmion

200 000 troops is simply far too little to achieve the first objective, so if they aren't irrational then that was not their objective.

For the second objective, they achieve it, mostly uncontested in the first couple of weeks, and we have little idea of Russia's actual losses and we have even less idea of what their toleration for losses is.

Certainly it's possible that they expected less losses to achieve more. Or it maybe just the cost of doing business from the Russian command's point of view.

What is clear is that the initial priority is to keep losses to professional soldiers and mercenaries in the first phases of the war, and they do achieve that at least for quite some time.

No one here is is arguing that either, at least not any more than any human group is fundamentally irrational at any time. — unenlightened

This has been argued many times, I can cite previous conversation if you want.

But good to know you aren't arguing this, in which case it should be pretty easy to see Russia's strategy does make sense and has worked well in terms of securing the land bridge to Crimea. Of course, there have been pros and cons to every decision which can be debated.

I'm not a military expert, but what happened looks to me to be modelled on the WW2 German invasion of France, a high speed blitz takeover of the Capital avoiding the main defensive forces to remove the government and replace it with a Vichy style government of the strategically unimportant regions, and annexation of, in this case, the entire south coast. — unenlightened

Well that's clearly not the Russian strategy or they would not have bothered advancing in the South at all, they would have only fought in the South insofar as it fixes Ukrainian troops there, so as to dedicate the majority of their resources to take Kiev.

Of course, I have zero issue believing the preferred outcome for the Russians is that Ukraine completely capitulates, and failing that Zelensky accepting their peace deal would be second best.

The Russians military plan, however, is clearly to take the land bridge to Crimea, which is what they do in essentially a week, and then pacify the cities involved, and their operation in the North serves to keep Kiev's main focus there.

Now, both taking land in the South and pressuring Kiev is certainly significant leverage in negotiating a peace deal, especially if Russia was offering to give that land back (which they were) and it was clear after the outbreak of the war that Ukraine was not in NATO and was not going to be. It was certainly the "rational thing to do" from the Russian point of view, but I would have hard time believing the Kremlin doesn't have the experience required to know people don't always do the rational thing as you see it and did not prepare accordingly (which they clearly did, amassing hundreds of billions of USD, hoarding gold, preparing an alternative payment system and so on).

Zelensky removed has no chance to dance to anyone's tune. Given an ex comedian with no political pedigree in charge, that is not an irrational plan. That obviously didn't happen, and then there was a strange pause before the withdrawal and regrouping. It looked like a winning plan until it didn't, which was when the airport couldn't be secured.
There was even a Pro-Russian faction with support from oligarchs and security services waiting to step into the breach. — unenlightened

You seem to think it would be easy for the Russians to replace Zelensky without lengthy and costly urban warfare in Kiev.

The scenario where what you describe is possible (with the forces Russia commits to Kiev) is one where Ukraine forces essentially don't put up a fight and Russian tanks can roll into Kiev uncontested. Again, that would certainly be the ideal scenario for the Russians and they certainly would have done that if there was no resistance.

However, Russian actions are completely inconsistent with some sort of blind belief that taking Kiev and replacing Zelensky would be easy, and as @Tzeentch points out the Ukraine military and government is filled with right with extremists who would just stage a coup if you did somehow manage to put in place a Russian puppet.

Ukraine has been preparing with support of the US for precisely this war for 8 years, there's CIA all over Ukraine, there's Nuland's famous "he's our man" and "fuck the EU" (yet the EU doesn't mind at all; indeed, "please commence with the Fucking" is the EU diplomatic position).

This whole idea that conquering all of Ukraine should have been easy is totally baseless: Ukraine is huge and difficult to sustain logistics even without resistance (it's not trivial to move tens of thousands of men and equipment and supplies), Ukraine has the largest army in Europe with the largest gaggle of armour, and their military is full of fanatical anti-Russian extremists (there are also moderates, and I'd agree that Zelensky isn't a right wing extremists, but there would be zero reason to expect moderates to dominate decision making).

I think Putin thought the same about Zelensky. A puppet he could knock over in a few days.Do you think Russia began this prepared for a long war of attrition? — unenlightened

Even within your own logic, a puppet of who?

Obviously the US, and the US was clearly not interested in peace, rejecting to even discuss Russia's peace proposal before the war nor anything else (as well as forbidding their vassals in Europe of doing so of their own accord).

So, assuming you're correct and Putin views Zelensky a puppet of the US, why wouldn't said US puppet do what he's told and implement US policy of rejecting peace?

Russia built up a massive war chest, over 600 billion USD, over nearly a decade; why would they do that if they were not preparing to finance a potential long war of attrition.

More troops could have been committed to the initial invasion, but if the primary military goal was to secure the land bridge to Crimea then clearly the commitment was sufficient.

There's also not only the military sphere, but the Kremlin needed also to prepared and balance things for massive sanctions and economic disruption: hence prosecute the war with professional troops and mercenaries so as to overcome the initial shock of sanctions with minimal additional disruption to the civilian population.

Of course, certainly it can be argued a better strategy was available, diplomatic or militarily, but this idea that the war was initiated on some sort of whim without careful thought and planning is really quite ludicrous. There was already a war in the Donbas supported by Russia for 8 years, so clearly it is on the minds of military and political leaders that if there's no diplomatic settlement then a military solution is the only alternative. Putin received far more criticism within Russia for not intervening sooner, but obviously a war of this size and right next to Russia would be complicated, hence clear indications of preparation.

Had Russia mobilized more troops for the initial invasion, it risks Ukraine mobilizing and a blitz to take the key territory becomes harder rather than easier.

Likewise, had things been prepared even better, every soldier knowing they will be going to war and exactly what they will be doing, it again risks Ukrainian mobilization and hundreds of thousands additional dug in troops and the bridges out of Crimea mined, shelled and bombed rather than massive columns of Russian armour just rolling into South Ukraine (which clearly the Ukrainians were not prepared for and completely collapses their lines West of the Donbas allowing the Russians to conquer the land bridge).

Which also goes to explain such observations:

Anecdotally, they were running short first of fuel, then of personal equipment for troops, and then of munitions and tanks and even training facilities for the reinforcements. But perhaps that is all Western propaganda. — unenlightened

In addition to @Tzeentch already mentioning that perhaps Russian forces were adequately supplied for the advances they intended to make in the initial invasion, any giant operation is going to have all sorts of anecdotal problems along with major setbacks and confusions. No one here is arguing the Russian invasion went perfectly according to plan, we're just pointing out Russian decisions do make sense.

The idea that Russia is an irrational actor was quite clearly a myth created in the early days and sustained for over a year (sometimes cherry picking true but pretty expected things like equipment SNAFU's as well as obvious lies like exorbitant number of casualties), as it avoids the difficult question of how Ukraine is going to prevail over a far larger opponent.

You don't need a viable plan if you're fighting an army of essentially retarded monkeys.

'Shelling targets of military value for 2 months'? I suppose you mean shelling of residential suburbs from March 4 (when the main convoy got close enough) till March 24, when they were pushed out of artillery range, not so much because Ukrainians pushed so hard, but because they were out of resources (with the most shelling, which was even then not that intense, lasting about ten days)? That is three weeks... care to list the supposed targets of military value that were hit? — Jabberwock

Although of course far more focus was paid to damage to civilian zones, the shelling of industrial zones was covered even by the Western media.

This is from the Hindu Times, just because it's not behind a paywall but it's simply repeating what was reported by AP, Reuters et al.

In this one article you have shelling of industrial zones, such as the airplane factory:

Ukrainian authorities said two people were killed when the Russians struck an airplane factory in Kyiv, sparking a large fire. The Antonov factory is Ukraine’s largest aircraft manufacturing plant and is best known for producing many of the world’s biggest cargo planes. — Kyiv areas shelled but ‘hard’ Ukraine peace talks go ahead - Hindustan Times

as well as how negotiations were to a peace deal:

[Kyiv areas shelled but ‘hard’ Ukraine peace talks go ahead - Hindustan Times;https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/kyiv-areas-shelled-but-hard-ukraine-peace-talks-go-ahead-101647309135539.html]The latest negotiations, which were held via video conference, were the fourth round involving higher-level officials from the two countries and the first in a week. The talks ended without a breakthrough after several hours, with an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky saying the negotiators took “a technical pause” and planned to meet again Tuesday.

The two sides had expressed some optimism in the past few days. Mykhailo Podolyak, the aide to Zelensky, said over the weekend that Russia was “listening carefully to our proposals”. and that the negotiators would discuss “peace, ceasefire, immediate withdrawal of troops & security guarantees”.[/quote]

Now obviously a peace deal was not reached, but shelling industrial zones (of which the military value is repurposing to ) was clearly one purpose of the push to Kiev.

As you note yourself, Russian forces reached residential areas of which many industrial zones will be similar distance, if not farther, from the town centre. And even if you simply refuse to believe Russia got close enough to shell significant industrial zones it was clearly a priority for them, doing so with missiles as well:

[Russia says ammunition factory near Kyiv destroyed by missile strike - Reuters;https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-ammunition-factory-near-kyiv-destroyed-by-missile-strike-2022-04-17/]April 17 (Reuters) - Russian armed forces destroyed an ammunition factory near Kyiv, Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said on Sunday.

"Overnight, high-precision air-launched missiles destroyed an ammunition factory near the town of Brovary in Kyiv region," Konashenkov said.[/quote]

So obviously advancing to Kiev would also accomplish this purpose of being able to destroy factories of various kinds.

The supposed evidence is Tzeentch quoting an Ukrainian general in the days BEFORE the attack, so take it up with him. — Jabberwock

You have trouble with reading comprehension. I state that even if Ukraine knows Russian troop numbers approaching Kiev they still have to defend Kiev. Furthermore, even if this was your belief you could not be 100% certain the intelligence is accurate or then that Russia cannot move in more troops on short notice, so you'd need to price that risk into your defence of the city as well.

Russia does not require Kiev to believe they are genuinely attempting to take Kiev to accomplish various objectives. These explanations of pretty obvious things is in response to your thesis that:

It needs to be pointed out that the whole theory of 'just threatening Kiyv' with an army that was supposedly obviously and clearly incapable of threatening Kiyv, is simply incoherent. In order to make a threat you have to be visibly capable of employing a force that is able to fulfill that threat. In fact, usually when you make a threat, you try to exaggerate the projected force. — Jabberwock

Which for all the reasons I explain, is clearly not true. It's completely coherent to send a small force to fix a large amount of troops, destroy plenty of factories and infrastructure, apply significant political pressure, while 15% of the country is conquered in the meanwhile.

It's a pretty common sense manoeuvre and if Ukraine "called the bluff" and sent significant resources to the south and undermanned their defence of Kiev, then maybe Russia would have taken the opportunity to pour in troops and storm the city.

Now, if you want to argue the Northern operation was had more drawbacks then achievements, that shelling Kiev simply increased resolve and Western support and allowed Zelensky to play the hero and ambushes on overstretched supply lines make the Russians look bad and beatable, and so on, such arguments make sense. There was certainly pros and cons to the Northern operation to siege Kiev and a lot could be considered.

For example, I'd have no problem accepting an analysis which concluded that short term the siege of Kiev nearly achieved a negotiated peace (but ultimately failed) while assisting the conquest of the Southern land bridge, and in the medium term made increased Ukrainian and Western resolve while making Russia look bad when they needed to retreat, but in the longer term creating a refugee exodus significantly weakens Ukraine structurally (economically, new soldiers aging into fighting age for a long war, less people to do things generally speaking, etc.) which aids in winning a war of attrition.

I'd even be willing accept that had Russia not sieged Kiev and simply took the land bridge that ultimately it would be more likely Ukraine would have accepted Russia's peace deal, as there would be less "bad blood".

However, that may not have been predictable from the outset, it certainly seems logical that pressuring the capital would maximize pressure for a political settlement. Furthermore, if Ukraine was able to fully focus on the South then perhaps it would have been able to counter attack and relieve Mariupol, stabilize the lines far less favourably for the Russians and that would have encouraged further fighting as much as the siege of Kiev.

The Russian strategy makes obvious sense. Certainly there is always a better strategy available, but the idea that the army that has taken and held critical land for its stated and common sense war objectives (land bridge to Crimea, protect Russian speaking separatists) is somehow incompetent or that sieging Kiev has no relation to the accomplishments in the South, is just dumb.

So their plan was obviously NOT a long-term 'siege' of Kiyv, contrary to your claims, because you rightly conclude that it would open them to attacks from the rear and they would not be able to maintain the siege at all. — Jabberwock

"Long-term 'siege' " is a nice but lame strawman. Where do I say a long term siege is necessary to apply political pressure?

Russia sieges Kiev until Mariupol is fully taken (the withdrawal is the week after the surrender of the remaining Azov forces), tries to negotiate a peace during this time, a peace deal is not reached, they can't maintain their positions, so they are forced to leave.

There was clearly many advantages to the Russians of the push to Kiev as well as disadvantages. I have zero problem with the argument that in some final analysis there was more cons than pros, but clearly the strategy made sense and did achieve some key military objectives.

The 'blitz' taking of Kiyv, while risky and obviously unsuccessful, at least has some strategic merit. The northern operation as a 'siege' would be an even greater Russian failure - when you prepare for a siege, you do not issue your troops fuel for four days and you do not bypass major resistance centers (as you pointed out). The loss of material suffered there (not destroyed, but mostly abandoned, which for a long time was the main source of Ukrainian supplies) in no way justifies the supposed profit of vague 'political pressure' from one-fourth of a siege. — Jabberwock

The Russians are not routed and captured but have an orderly withdrawal when they retreat, so they obviously had enough fire power to hold their positions and get resupplied.

If it was a risky mad dash blitz the capital with only 4 days of fuel, then they would have all been captured when that failed.

Now, I have zero problem with the idea that the ideal scenario for the Russians is that the Ukrainians simply fall apart in terms of C&C and there's a near complete capitulation, or then no defence of the city is organized and they're able to take the city with a small force and the population accepts a total Russian victory. However, they do commit enough resources to maintain the positions they take around Kiev the time to accomplish full occupation of major cities in the south, particularly Mariupol.

However, what is clear even in your scenario is that there is not enough man power to take Kiev waging urban combat even against a small amount of defenders.

I of course agree that total capitulation by Ukraine would be the a preferred outcome of blitzing to Kiev, and if that was plan A then the Russians clearly had a plan B, but we seem to agree that their plan is not conquest of Kiev against any significant resistance.

It needs to be pointed out that the whole theory of 'just threatening Kiyv' with an army that was supposedly obviously and clearly incapable of threatening Kiyv, is simply incoherent. In order to make a threat you have to be visibly capable of employing a force that is able to fulfill that threat. In fact, usually when you make a threat, you try to exaggerate the projected force. — Jabberwock

What's incoherent about applying political pressure, a fixing operation, shelling targets of military value for 2 months as well as causing a flood of refugees out of Ukraine?

It's also completely ignorant of the history of war. Laying siege to a city rather than trying to storm it right off the bat is a pretty old and common sense tactic, essentially as old as fortified urban centres themselves.

Of course modern cities are not fortified on purpose but it turns out lots of concrete buildings serve that purpose, and applying pressure by purposefully starving urban populations is no longer "a thing" (except if you're Israel of course), but a siege applies significant pressure nonetheless and created a significant barrier to moving people that are in Kiev to the southern front.

Even if Ukraine knew (i.e. informed by the US) that the Russians did not have enough forces to take and occupy Kiev, they still have to direct significant forces to defend the capital as it's a politically critical target. Furthermore, few things are certain in war, so likely Kiev did not "know" Russian troop numbers and disposition or then what man power Russia could divert to Kiev on short notice.

Meanwhile, during the battle of Kiev, Russia took the land bridge to Crimea and then pacified those regions they are still occupying today.

Another indication of Russian strategy to take the South and not Kiev is that Russia not only did not engage in fierce Urban combat in Kiev but bypassed most urban centres on the way to Kiev, which was a significant weakness in terms of maintaining their position around Kiev as Ukrainians could go out from these bypassed urban areas and ambush and harass the Russian supply line.

Then there is the political pressure of the capital being gotten to from both sides in short period of time and siege starting.

Now, would surrounding the capital without being able to take it and occupy it apply enough pressure to cause a complete unconditional surrender? No, obviously not, if the defence of the city was holding up there would be little reason to just completely capitulate.

However, the Russians were not asking complete capitulation, but at that time there main demands were a neutral Ukraine, recognizing Crimea as part of Russia and an independent Donbas, so occupying the South of Ukraine and slowly surrounding the capital and shelling significant parts of it and causing a refugee crisis etc. was significant pressure to accept Russian demands.

It's certainly a reasonable strategy that facilitates taking the South in the event Ukraine refuses peace terms and wants to continue fighting.

What is completely unclear is what scenario the Kremlin viewed as more likely, Ukraine accepting peace terms or then a longer war. It can be argued both ways. The story emerges, in both the West and Russia, that Russian intelligence underestimated Ukraine, but there's no hard evidence for this. It's pretty typical for countries starting a war to promise their population a quick victory even if the leaders know there is significant risk it can take a long time.

One could also argue that the operation to lay siege to Kiev had serious drawbacks such as creating the perfect scene for Zelensky to rally Ukrainian and Western support, hardening the Ukrainian will rather than weaken it and since the positions could not be maintained long term then setting up a Ukrainian victory.

Pointing out that the Russian strategy made sense and clearly on the whole delivered the result of conquering the Ukrainian lands Russia now occupies, and that the Northern operation achieved plenty of purposes other than storming and occupying Kiev, does not imply it's some optimum military maneuver.

In my view, militarily it was a good strategy and prevented Ukraine from organizing any sort of counter offensive in the South, especially to try to rescue the trapped Azov guys and destroying or capturing Azov Battalion was a significant victory for Russia in terms of consolidating their gains, but also domestic and international politics.

Politically it did have the draw backs mentioned above, but I don't think Ukraine would have been any closer to agreeing to peace terms without sieging the capital.

First and foremost, the battle for Kyiv wasn't some kind of fake attack. Yet the fall of Ukraine didn't happened and Putin (correctly) then withdraw. Yet it's obvious, starting from Clausewitz, that this was one of the most important objectives: either take or surround the capital. — ssu

That there was no intention or plan to occupy Kiev does not mean it was a fake attack.

The purpose was to pressure Ukrainians / Zelensky into negotiating a settlement while also fixing troops while the South was conquered and pacified (and Azov battalion destroyed in Mariupol and prevent some sort of heroic rescue of them).

Pointing out 20 000 troops isn't enough to conquer in urban combat and occupy a capital city of a few million does not mean the attack was "fake", just that there was obviously no intention to do something so obviously impossible.

The Russians also shelled everything of military value in Kiev, such as war industries, so it accomplished that too.

And in the meantime you'll just ignore the evidence because it suits you. Because that's proper epistemology, apparently. — Echarmion

Ignore what evidence?

I went and looked for ISW tally of Russian and Ukrainian losses, as even if heavily biased towards supporting Western narratives, I'd nevertheless be surprised if they were arguing Ukraine is inflicting the many multiple times more losses required to win a war of attrition with the Russians.

I ask you to actually cite the evidence you're referring to in the context of you complaining about the lack of evidence to support facts you don't dispute ... and you just claim I'm ignoring your evidence by asking for the actual evidence??

Oryx I also did not ignore but pointed out their methodology of just looking at videos published by Ukraine and taking them at face value is not even moronically intellectually dishonest but pure propaganda; it's essentially just relabelling Ukrainian propaganda and then considering it independent. Absolute rubbish.

I didn't ask you to prove any of these, but I'm glad you got all that anger off your chest. — Echarmion

What anger. I ask you questions.

That the questions don't need answering because the answers are so obvious closes the case that you are a complete fool.

You ask for "the evidence" to support my arguments, I ask you what evidence you want to see, and then you say you aren't asking me to prove any of the facts needed to make my argument that: bigger army with more capabilities is very likely to win a war of attrition.

Oh god you're actually serious... — Echarmion

Since the invasion, Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands more troops thus essentially creating another army compared to the first army that invaded.

Again, what are you disputing? That Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands additional troops? Or just you'd quibble about calling such a mobilization another army?

At the start of the war everyone assumed the russian army would overrun Ukraine in weeks, as far as I remember. — Echarmion

This is just false. Plenty of military analysts pointed out that 200 000 troops is not enough to overrun Ukraine, that Ukraine is huge, that Ukraine has the largest Army in Europe, can mobilize hundreds of thousands of additional troops, is supported by US / NATO weapons, logistics and intelligence.

Go and find even one expert pre-war military analysis that concluded Russia would overrun Ukraine in weeks, then contrast your failure to find even with "everybody".

Academic, think tank, and even talking heads in the media all agreed that essentially the maximum aim of the Russians would be to create a land bridge to Crimea compared to a minimalist incursion to simply protect the Donbas separatists. The idea Russia would be conquering all of Ukraine in weeks did not exist.

Of course, Ukraine could capitulate, but all there was pretty wide consensus that if Ukraine decided to fight it can put up a serious fight and would not be easy to defeat.

Maybe it cannot, but for one Russia is not as of now fighting a total war in Ukraine and, for another, military capabilities seem to be about at parity for now, which means that Ukraine certainly has not lost the ability to negotiate from a position of strength. — Echarmion

For someone who complains about a lack of evidence to support facts you don't doubt to begin with, you say a lot of baseless obviously false things.

Ukraine still has no air power remotely comparable to the Russians, and their top general complains about it regularly that air power is required for modern warfare.

Air power has been essential for conventional warfare since WWII. The entire US military strategy and force composition is centred around achieving air supremacy.

What parity?

As for negotiating from a position of strength ... Russia was offering Donbas to remain in Ukraine, just with some political autonomy so as to protect Russian speakers, both before the war and during the first phase. You seriously believe Ukraine will be able to get such a deal now?

And even if that was somehow in the cards (which it's not) what could possibly justify over a year more of fighting and such devastation to a deal that was rejected?

However, your focus on capabilities again simply highlights your complete ignorance of military affairs and total lack of understanding of "facts on the ground" you allude to.

The smaller party is going to lose a war of attrition even with parity in capabilities.

Russia does not need to fight a total war to fight with Ukraine, it needs only match Ukraine in man power and then rely on replenishing its forces and greater capabilities to grind down the Ukrainian military to the point of total collapse.

Since it's far larger, Russia can match Ukraine's total war and also keep running its peace time economy at the same time.

The fact that you understand Russia is not at total war but there is a "stalemate" (aka. war of attrition) should be enough in itself to conclude Ukraine is in a disastrous position.

Again apart from the fact that they have alredy suffered three major defeats in this war and have had obvious problems replacing both men and materiel.

To be sure I'm not claiming Ukraine is certain to win, but so far the war has certainly not demonstrated Russia's overwhelming superiority. — Echarmion

Russia needs to balance the war effort with maintaining a functioning economy and also domestic support for the war.

This is what the West was betting Russia would be unable to do, especially under the "nuclear option" of massive sanctions.

That was the theory of victory, some sort of internal Russian collapse. Since that didn't happen, Ukraine is now screwed as there was no military backup plan. Ukraine fighting was supposed to trigger some sort of Russian revolution and so there was no need to defeat the Russian military in the field.

There was never any evidence this theory of victory could likely work (of course, in "hypothetical land" nearly anything can work) but it was an easy sell to a Western audience.

Well, so what? The Russians told us, over the course of some 20 years, that they view it as a threat to their vital security. We, the West, snubbed them at every turn because we thought they were weak. — Tzeentch

I'd like to elaborate on this for the benefit of people who have been confused by Western propaganda that spins military hardware and assistance as non-threatening.

The propaganda is based on the bait-and-switch fallacy of first establishing providing military assistance is legal and then switching out legal for "non threatening", then any rational discussion of this error in reasoning simply being met with endless confusion as to what "threat means", essentially concluding with the argument that since NATO does not intend to attack Russia that therefore military hardware moved close to Russia is not threatening.

The analogy required to understand how stupid this propaganda is, is to consider the scenario where I put a loaded gun to your head and then tell you I'm not threatening you because I don't intend to pull the trigger.

That a gun to your head is a threat to your safety is independent of the intention to shoot you.

Military hardware is by definition a threat to one's safety and by definition moving said military hardware closer is moving said threat closer and the party it's being moved closer to will naturally feel more threatened than if that hardware was further away.

This was a critical piece of propaganda as without accepting moving military means closer to another country is by definition moving a threat closer to that country which may provoke said country to reduce the threat, makes any rational analysis of the situation impossible.

Of course, you can argue that the military hardware moved further and further East towards Russia has nothing to do with Russia and is just a fun exercise.

Likewise, you can argue that even if Russia should feel threatened by NATO moving hardware East it shouldn't respond by invading West; that "defending national interest" is only a US prerogative, for example.

Or one could argue that despite the hardware being an obvious threat that a rational actor should try to diminish, that NATO is so far more powerful than Russia that there is no effective response.

The problem with all these arguments is of course it begs the question of why move military hardware further East if the West has no intention to threaten Russia as it claims and maybe it's just better to negotiate peace rather than do destabilizing things, in the best light, to not really achieve anything. Did moving NATO missile bases into Eastern Europe make Eastern Europe safer and a better place? If not, what was the point again?

Fanatical fighting, however, is incompatible with rational analysis.

Apparent from reading reports by the ISW, Oryx, or various commentators who cite their sources. — Echarmion

I do not find where ISW makes any tally of Russian losses.

Oryx methodology is an absolute joke; they count any piece of video provided by Ukraine with zero context purporting to show a Russian loss as a "verified" Russian loss.

Anyways, with the end of the war we'll get a better picture of what the losses have actually been.

I demand argument mostly, and some reference to facts on the ground rather than airy declarations.

You, I might remind you, have provided zero evidence yourself. — Echarmion

I've provided plenty of evidence throughout this discussion to support my points.

For the matter at hand however, it's not under dispute that Russia is the larger force. You don't dispute that, neither does anyone else. The argument is straightforward that the larger force is likely to win, especially in a a war of attrition that is the current configuration of the war.

The argument is so obvious based on so obvious facts that asking for references just highlights your confusion as to where you are, what your purpose in life is and what is happening generally speaking. For, you, nor anyone else, disputes these facts, so there is no need to support them with citations.

I point out that actual evidence is needed to believe the contrary: that despite being a smaller country with a smaller military and less capabilities, that Ukraine is going to win or there is even a viable path to victory.

You, nor anyone else, can now present such evidence that Ukraine is "winning" against the odds, or even a remotely plausible theory of how Ukraine could potentially win.

The best that is offered is that it's hypothetically possible for a smaller force to defeat a larger force or then larger forces have tired of war and gone home in the past.

Failing to answer such questions and find any evidence, you feebly retreat to demanding I provide evidence to support my position.

You really want evidence that Russia is the larger country with the larger military? Or do you really want evidence that the war at the moment, and since a while, is not a war of manoeuvre but of attrition?

Or do you want me to through the basic arithmetic required to understand that in any attritional process of even remote parity (of which there is no reason to believe any asymmetry is in Ukraine's favour), the larger of the abrading assemblies has the advantage.

Or do you want me to cite CNN citing Ukrainian top officials saying exactly the same thing?

Two articles published this week give a stark assessment of Ukraine’s prospects in its war with Russia. One – by the commander in chief of the Ukrainian military – admits the battlefield has reached a stalemate and a long attritional war benefiting Moscow beckons. The other portrays Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as exhausted by the constant effort to cajole and persuade allies to keep the faith.

Ukraine’s military chief, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, says in a long essay and interview with the Economist that “just like in the First World War we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.”

He acknowledges: “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough,” but instead an equilibrium of devastating losses and destruction. — Exhausted and disappointed with allies, Ukraine’s president and military chief warn of long attritional war - CNN

So are the Ukrainians fools for strategically deciding which front to defend? Because earlier you lauded Finnland for that strategy. — Echarmion

I lauded Finland for using military action to support feasible political objectives and conserving their military force through defending rather than working themselves up into a delusional war frenzy and promising to "retake every inch of Finnish lands" before recklessly throwing themselves at prepared Soviet Defences.

Now, it just so happens that Finland had suitable geography to defend against a larger force, one reason to gamble on costly military defence rather than capitulate.

Ukrainian political leaders are fools for not using their military leverage (before it is exhausted) to negotiate the best possible terms for peace.

These are the kind of airy statements unmoored from facts on the ground that I meant earlier. — Echarmion

What are you disputing exactly? That Ukraine won the battle of Kiev in 2022?

Or are you disputing the basic principle that military power should be used to achieve political objectives (either by physically implementing them or leverage in negotiation) ... rather than express wanton hate and strive for pointless destruction?

Hahaha, yeah the famed second russian army they kept in reserve. Too bad it never made it to Ukraine... — Echarmion

I'm referring to the fact that Russia has far larger professional standing army, far more reservists and conscripts that can be mobilized. Are you disputing this fact? That Russia, being larger, has far more manpower available?

And this famed second army does exist and is still in reserve. It may simply be used to simply continue the attritional fighting and rotate and replenish troops or maybe it will be used for some large offensive maneuver anywhere along the border with Ukraine / Belarus.

You're discussing a strawman. The russian army has demonstrated ability to learn in various areas. That said it still seems to suffer from C&C flaws, which aren't surprising in an autocratic regime.

But anyway what's the point of discussing when you're clearly have a very different picture of reality but don't seem interested in naming your sources. — Echarmion

What straw man? I'm discussing the propaganda pervasive at the start of the war that the Russian army was incompetent and easy to defeat. Propaganda that was essential to convince the West and Ukraine to rush into total war.

For, if you paused to reflect that Russia is far larger and the degree to which, man for man, Ukraine would need to outperform Ukraine with less military capabilities (air, sea, armour, drones, electronic warfare etc.) the doubt may creep in that maybe Ukraine cannot win a total war with Russia and it would be much better for the Ukrainian people and Europe to negotiate a peace, compromise with the Russians to save lives and as much Ukrainian sovereignty as possible.

Of course, no need for such sober deliberations if the Russian soldier is some hapless retarded child wandering around the battle field in a blissfully ignorant whimsy.

Again, the position that requires evidence is the idea that Ukraine can inflict massively asymmetric losses required to win.

My position is based on the facts that are not in dispute: Russia is larger and has more military capabilities and there is no reason to believe Ukraine can somehow win in such a disadvantaged position.

Of course, US / NATO could have tried to even the odds by pouring in advanced capabilities, but they didn't because they fear nuclear escalation, which even if the risk is small is not a risk worth taking for Ukraine.

Russia takes 20% of Ukraine territory and your conclusions is:

Russia meanwhile has demonstrated the ability to take territory by assaulting a relatively small sector of the front with a large, grinding assault. But the losses this causes are apparently very heavy and it's very slow. — Echarmion

But the losses this causes are apparently very heavy and it's very slow. Ukraine meanwhile has failed to penetrate heavy russian defenses. — Echarmion

Apparent to whom? What evidence?

You demand others provide evidence (often of completely obvious things to anyone following the conflict, which is what we do here) and yet provide none yourself.

Ukraine won the battle for Kiev, the battle for Charkiv (that one actually was a major rout) and the battle for Kherson. — Echarmion

While Ukraine was "winning" the battle for Kiev, Russia simply rolled out of Crimea (on bridges that were neither bombed nor shelled) and created a land bridge from Crimea to Russian mainland.

However, true that Ukraine was at least able to defend Kiev and did not entirely capitulate and clearly demonstrated that if Russia was to settle things militarily it would be extremely costly (which it has been). Of course, when a smaller force makes such a demonstration to a larger force it is extremely likely that continued fighting will be even more costly to the smaller force.

Therefore, the smaller force should aim to use the leverage of the prospect of a costly and risky war (not only in itself but in terms of extrinsic events) to negotiate a peace on the most favourable terms.

Ukraine achieved that after the winning the battle of Kiev.

Unfortunately, if temporarily winning one battle among many losses, against what is essentially an imperial expeditionary force (not remotely the whole your adversary can muster) goes to your head and you, the smaller force, decide your soldiers are so much better and more motivated than your enemy and you are in fact in position to settle things on the battle field (aka. delusional), then that leverage starts going away.

The more the war goes on, the more the larger force will want to "show for it" and the more foolish the decision to keep fighting becomes compared to settling things quickly (especially when reasonable peace terms were proposed): enter wishful thinking driving strategy rather than any realistic summation of prospects.

And the reason it is delusional is that against a far larger force you'd need to inflict losses at such a disproportionate rate and sustain that against the enemy being able to do something call learning. There was never any concrete evidence Ukraine could inflict disproportionate casualties on the Russians at the scale of the entire war (certainly some engagements go better or worse) and any critical enquiry would be met with "well .... Ukraine doesn't disclose its casualties; it's a war you know, very secret stuff", but even if the propaganda was true you'd need to believe Russia would be unable to adapt and even the playing field, which is an incredibly foolish assumption considering Russia has not only more resources, available manpower but far more capabilities than Ukraine (air, sea, armour, etc.); it is not a situation where Ukraine is carpet bombing at will Russian troops equipped essentially with only small arms.

Why the myth of the incompetent Russian soldier who essentially wants to die was so critical to make Ukraine's commitment to further fighting and explicit refusal to negotiate make sense. You'd have to believe that the Russian soldier is essentially retarded to maintain the idea that the Russian army won't figure out some effective use of all its equipment, assuming you believed the propaganda that Ukraine was inflicting asymmetric losses on the Russians (rather than what was likely: Ukraine was suffering significantly more losses maintaining ground against Russia's professional and better equipped army and then later mercenaries).

Hard to see the Russians going home. — Tzeentch

Yes, it's almost impossible to envision in the actual war at hand.

Unlike some remote and exotic place that normal people don't care about, the war is right on Russia's border and defending (from the Russian point of view) ethnic Russians as well as retaking lands that were Russian for hundreds of years. These are elements that strongly motivate a population to fight a war, very unlike wandering around the mountains in Afghanistan for no clear reason.

Pressure on Zelensky is growing to start negotiations with the Russians. He has cancelled elections because by now everybody understands Zelensky wouldn't be re-elected. People within the Ukrainian military and political establishment are starting to admit that things are much worse than the media makes them appear. — Tzeentch

Yes, we haven't even gotten to the part where all this skeptical analysis of Ukraine's prospects in a long war (compared to negotiating before or then in the short term after the war started) accumulated here and elsewhere is starting to be openly admitted and discussed even in mainstream Western media.

But it's not a stalemate. Ukraine is losing, and it's losing decisively. That's why the pressure is growing. Sensible people understand that the longer Ukraine waits to negotiate, the more Ukraine's negotiating position will deteriorate.

'Stalemate' is just a cope term, to save face, to avoid having to admit defeat to domestic audiences, and to not have to utter the words "the Russians won". — Tzeentch

Agreed.

What's worse than calling a war of attrition a stalemate, the comparison to WWI trench warfare is particular irritatingly ignorant.

WWI wasn't a stalemate! I'm pretty sure one side lost.

The bottomline now is that Ukraine is not going to join NATO, and the question is whether negotiations will be able to produce something that the West and Ukraine can prop up to their domestic populations.

EU-membership might be that thing, though it's questionable whether this is realistic considering how utterly broken Ukraine is, and the fact that the EU has some pretty strict criteria on whether a country can join. It might simply be a carrot to dangle infront of Zelensky's face to get him to negotiate, or to give Zelensky something to sell to Ukrainians as a 'victory'. — Tzeentch

This should be the problem, but the underlying problem is the extent of the losses. As soon as the war ends there is going to be a tally of Ukrainian dead and permanently disabled and it will be revealed the extent to which Ukrainians and the West were lied to and the madness driving the war will be revealed.

The entire justification for the war effort was that Ukraine was inflicting more losses than sustaining, or then the moments of skepticism about that in Western media would fall back to at least parity: that "maybe" Ukrainians aren't inflicting more losses but then it would be about the same.

It is the day of reckoning that Zelensky fears most and he will do everything to avoid it.

I would argue that it is simply not mentally possible for Zelensky to face the reality of what he has done, especially as multiple opportunities to negotiate a peace existed before and during the war.

Everyone else can just say they were following orders, naturally.

Hence the need to gradually discredit Zelensky and get rid of him.

That is my prediction anyways.

I think this is all quite bleak and tragic, especially for Ukraine itself. I can't imagine having to make such sacrifices only for it to be in vain. But that's the price to pay for politicians who deal in delusions and fairy tales. — Tzeentch

It is certainly a great tragedy.

And we have definitely learned that wishful thinking doesn't win wars. Again.

Right, because it's absolutely impossible for a smaller country to win against a larger one. Never happens, ever. — Echarmion

Where do I say it's impossible?

It's called evidence. Actual evidence is needed to support the idea that Ukraine is winning or can win in this case against a larger and stronger opponent. Otherwise, without evidence to the contrary it is reasonable to assume that the much larger and more powerful force is going to win a military confrontation.

Something being hypothetically possible does not lend any weight to it actually being the case in reality, which is the topic here.

And the Finns were right, while Ukraine is wrong, because? — Echarmion

The Finns were right because their strategy was realistic: Finland in WWII could not defeat the Soviet Union, but by defending long enough it would motivate the Soviet Union to agree to a peace on more favourable terms that outright capitulation or eventual military defeat.

The Finns leveraged their much smaller military force to maximize their defensive advantage in order to support a political objective of remaining independent.

Throughout the entire conflict with the Soviet Union, Finland maintained constant diplomatic talks.

What they didn't do is just throw their hands up, declare the Soviet Union evil, Stalin evil, and they wouldn't talk or negotiate with them and demand the world finance their entire war effort and most of their economy without any discernible political objective, or "end game" in modern talking head parlance.

I don't have access to the intelligence Ukraine had when deciding on that offensive, so I have no idea whether the effort was delusional. They seem to have adjusted their tactics to the situation on the ground well enough. — Echarmion

We have enormous amounts of intelligence to go on, including regularly updated satellite imagery of Russian positions which showed us elaborate and multi-layered fortifications with extensive mine fields.

What sort of intelligence could Ukraine possibly have that would indicate attacking fortified lines built up over a whole year would be less costly to them compared to not-doing-that and waiting for Russia to attack Ukraine's own fortified positions?

Now *that* is a delusional scenario unless we assume the Russian leadership is a suicide cult. — Echarmion

Why didn't the US and NATO acolytes pour in all the advanced weaponry they have since trickled into Ukraine from the get go? Why aren't squadrons of f16 with all the advanced sensors and missiles and other munitions not patrolling Ukrainians skies as we speak?

The first year of the war, Ukraine had realistic chances of defeating the Russian forces that had invaded. Russia had not yet even partly mobilized, had not yet built up sophisticated defences, and were prosecuting the war with their professional soldiers and a band of mercenaries.

If the goal was to defeat Russia in Ukraine, it was certainly possible in the first months and year. Of course, that would not end the war but would be a humiliating military disaster for Russia, which combined with the disruption of the sanctions, would have solid chances of unravelling the Russian state as the Neo-cons so desired.

Now, instead of "providing what Ukraine needs" the West simply made arbitrary rules of what could be supplied: no tanks, no howitzers, no "offensive" missiles that could reach Russia proper, certainly no Western aircraft or helicopters, no advanced drones and so on.

When questioned about these limitations, sometime US or NATO officials would make up some lame excuse, but mostly they would simply say that they don't want to "escalate".

Escalate to where? To Ukraine winning, at least a first war?

No, obviously escalate to nuclear weapons.

If Russia was actually facing military defeat, lines collapsing, tens of thousands of prisoners, chaotic mobilization and so on, furious population and the start of civil unrest etc. they would certainly consider the use of nuclear weapons to salvage the situation.

Of course, we don't know if they would use nuclear weapons.

What we do know, is that the US and NATO did not want to find out what the decision would be.

And why? Because if you war game it out, if NATO and the US "pushed hard" in Ukraine and actually supplied what could deliver victory to Ukraine, and there was a flood of advanced Western weapons, then Russia certainly could legitimately say it is de facto in a state of war with NATO and so strike NATO bases in Eastern Europe with nuclear weapons as well as every bridge across the Dnieper as well as critical bunkers, C&C and supply centres to arrest the Ukrainian advance.

Now, you can argue that maybe such attacks wouldn't work, that all Russian warheads are duds or missile defence would work flawlessly to deal with it or whatever, but maybe such strikes would work perfectly well.

There is no rule that the use of tactical nuclear weapons automatically triggers a full on armageddon. You could say all Russian second strike capability are duds too ... ok, well, maybe they aren't.

So the question becomes first is it worth risking a full strategic exchange of nuclear weapons on all major cities in the West ... to protect a non-NATO members property over Russian speakers in East Ukraine?

And second, if the escalation stops and the end result is Russia hit some bases in Eastern Europe and NATO his some comparable Russian bases somewhere, and the war in Ukraine is ended as Russia can anyways just nuke at will there without there even being any treaty obligation to respond, is this a "win" for the West?

Maybe the outcome is better for the West than for Russia, but it doesn't seem to me a desirable situation.

More important than my opinion in explaining events, it is clearly NATO's opinion not to escalate anywhere close to what would cause Russia to seriously consider the use of nuclear weapons.

So, the logical corollary of such a policy is to support Ukraine enough to prop it up and avoid an embarrassing collapse but not enough to pose any real risk to Russian forces. So as Ukraine's fighting capacity diminishes, this policy calls for trying to reestablish parity with those advanced weapons that was "common sense" couldn't be sent sometimes even the month before.

What are they winning exactly? — Echarmion

They are winning the war. They have successfully conquered nearly a quarter of Ukraine, and arguably the most valuable quarter in terms of resources and the part that most speaks Russian.

The current "stalemate" is a war of attrition that heavily favours the larger force.

If you want to argue these aren't worthwhile moral objectives or then they are losing in some economic or political way (vis-a-vis the West; clearly Ukraine is far more damaged than Russia and is not winning in any political or economic sense against Russia), then you are free to do so, but the context of such an argument would be the Russians are at least winning militarily in Ukraine.

↪boethius, let me just check that I understand your theory, the military-industrial complex decides what is and isn't sent to Ukraine, and they're in business. — jorndoe

This is not my theory at all.

"Drip Feed theory" (DFT) is that what is sent to Ukraine depends on what kind of help will prop up Ukraine in the short term while not being a real threat to Russia nor piss them off "too much".

So, the "next thing" is only sent to Ukraine after their fighting capacity is degraded sufficiently that they risk collapse if they don't get "the next thing" but also they no longer pose much of a threat even with "the next thing".

The reason for this policy is that if you sit down and really try to "push things" and consider doing what would need to be done to see through a Ukrainian victory, then rapidly you need to contend with nuclear escalation.

Help too much the Ukrainians with too sophisticated weapons and Russia can easily say things such as the weapons are entirely dependent on systems and information support outside Ukraine and is de facto at war with NATO and then not only strike Ukraine with nuclear weapons but also strike NATO bases in East-Europe.

Now, maybe NATO responds by nuking some Russian bases. If there's a full scale nuclear exchange that follows, that's not "winning" anything.

However, Russia could not respond, just take the loss in exchange for the loss of NATO bases in Eastern Europe, but retaliate instead by nuking more Ukraine, for example all the major cities rendering Ukraine completely unable to keep fighting.

And those would be the only two outcomes. Obviously, you have to nuke something if you get nuked, that goes without saying, but scenario 1 is a loss (doesn't matter much if Russia loses too for any rational actor) and scenario 2 is also a loss and arguably a win for Russia.

Of course, if there's no need to use nuclear weapons then as as has been noted many times there are lot's of reasons Russia would not use nuclear weapons in the current situation: because they are winning. Hence, if the West wants to minimize the risk of the use of nuclear weapons, then it needs to keep Russia winning by undersupplying Ukraine.

Well, a Soviet Union, with far more arms and men, did tire from fighting a far smaller war Afghanistan, even they managed to kill far more Afghans than the US ever. But you assume this war hasn't had any effect on Russia? — ssu

I literally say "Of course, maybe Russia will 'tire out'," followed with "feel free to present evidence that will happen 'this time' ", and ending with "but there's a lot of lives to gamble to test such a theory."

I am completely aware that larger armies can simply tire of fighting and go home and that is one potential outcome in any war, that's why I literally say so.

That it has happened before, however, is not evidence it will happen this time.

Feel free to provide evidence Russia, in whatever general form is required to continue to prosecute the war, is not committed to said war, and in particular defending the annexed territories.

Unlike in Afghanistan in the Cold War, Russia is defending Russian speakers in the annexed regions and defending a critical long term strategic position.

Additionally, unlike Afghanistan, I would argue there isn't really an option of "just leaving" due to the geology (of there being no natural barrier between Ukraine and Russia) and politically due to the annexations.

That entirely depends on the larger situation. You can't just sit on the defensive all the time either. There are plenty of plausible reasons why Ukraine might want to push even into prepared russian defenses - to fix troops in place, to keep russian commanders on the defensive psychologically, to seize tactically advantageous positions, to force the russian artillery to fire so they can be targeted with counter-battery fire. I could go on, but the point is your analysis is simplistic to the point of being useless. — Echarmion

You can't be on the defensive all the time in football, you can be on the defensive all the time in a war.

Of course, there are offensive actions that will optimize defence, but the great Ukrainian offensive to cut the land bridge and then retake Crimea is not such offensive actions undertaken for the purposes of defence.

When you are a smaller country invaded by a larger country, the correct military strategy is to defend, minimizing your own losses while maximizing losses on the enemy. Of course, doing so requires defending positions until they are no longer fit for purpose and retreating to prepared fortifications behind you (the opposite direction of a foolish charge at the enemy's fortifications).

Of course, the pace of retreat must be slow enough in order to render the ongoing conquest of the entire country too costly.

Now, offensive operations do have a uses within the context of a defensive strategy. Making your enemy fear surprise offensives and counter-offensives makes them divert resources and increases the costs and complexity of planning, all of which further slows down the attacker.

The classic purpose of defending against a superior force that will eventually win is give time for diplomatic actions.

There are only two available:

1. convince other parties to join the war. For example the UK defending against Nazi Germany to buy time for the US to join the war and save them.

2. Negotiate a peace using the leverage of the high cost of further fighting.

When a larger country with a much larger military invades a smaller country with a smaller military, plan A is for the smaller country to simply capitulate. There are many sound and rational reasons to simply capitulate and this happens regularly throughout history. People don't want to die, nor see their country destroyed, and the new boss maybe remarkably similar to the old boss anyways.

However, if the smaller country musters a defence then it is in a position to negotiate better terms than an outright surrender.

Finland fighting the Soviet Union has been often cited as some sort of model for Ukraine.

Ukraine's initial defence does follow the Finnish model (or pretty much any smaller country putting up a serious defense).

However, in then quickly diverges into delusional fantasy of "beating" the Russians. Finland, not being delusional that it could defeat the Soviet Union, needed to agree to a peace and accept it lost said war with the Soviet Union, lost 20% of their territory, lost access to the Arctic Ocean, the largest lake previously split with the Soviet Union, a cultural heartland, and of course many lives, and last but not necessarily least had to concede defeat to the Soviet Union (kiss ass in more formal diplomatic parlance) and agree to pay massive war reparations that transformed the country's ecology (in order to cut down enough trees to pay for the privilege of still existing as a country).

In the case Finland, military defensive strategy coherently supported diplomatic efforts. The only nuance being the Finns did reconquer territory at one point, but this was not a delusional strategy but a bet that Nazi Germany (not themselves) would defeat the Soviet Union and they could get all their land back that way (though it should be noted the Finns also hedged their bets and did not go past their initial borders in order to have a better diplomatic position in case the Nazis lost; aka. not provide the Soviet Union with casus belli of a war of reprisal if they defeated the Nazis).

Point is, you can always be on the defensive and it is wise to do so against a superior force and the point would be to negotiate a peace that is better than both capitulation and complete conquest.

There is zero point to go on a delusional campaign right into sophisticated prepared defences of a superior force.

Catch-phrases such as "you can't just sit on the defensive all the time either." are true in football and other similar sports.

Now, if you mean that some offensive actions support defence and that by "depends on the circumstances" you agree Ukraine's campaign to "cut the land bridge" and "retake Crimea" was a delusional fools errand, then we agree.

People have been bashing each other's heads in for scraps of territory for hundreds of years. — Echarmion

Did you even read what I wrote?

What I wrote assumed Ukraine's goal of "freedom" and pointed out that freeing a few while putting the rest at risk makes no military sense.

Attacking prepared defences in a war of attrition as the smaller party is the opposite of military sanity. This is the point to make it more clear.

Of course, the reason for doing so is to maintain a (delusional) narrative that the West just kind of needs to hear right now and since the star of the war, which leads to the vast sums of money required to even be in the game. To have "a chance", Ukraine needs to do militarily stupid things for the sake of optics.

Now, if the required sacrifices on the Western political altar led to the promised demise of the Russian state by mechanism that were and remain essentially voodoo (i.e. magical thinking without any precedent in history at all), then the military moves would have had to have made sense had the things that would have made them make sense happened to have actually happened. But they didn't.

This is literally an article about Russian helicopters being shot down by advancing UAF forces. It details how Ukraine has increased the air defense capabilities over brigades advancing into Russian-held territory. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The point is Ukraine doesn't have such helicopters to be shot down.

The other point would be the damage these helicopters do.

Sure, Ukraine can shoot some down from time to time, that's what attritional warfare is.

Both sides take losses in a war of attrition, that's sort of the definition.

Ukraine has less man power and less capabilities ... so how is it going to win a war of attrition?

The destruction of a large number of rotary wing craft over the past two weeks thanks to the US (finally) delivering long(er) range missiles has further reduced Russia's ability to use rotary wing craft. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Again why is it "finally"?

Why didn't US just supply these weapons before the Ukrainian offensive ... or then during when Ukraine was having so much trouble even getting to Russian fortified lines with armoured vehicles due to said helicopters?

Why only supply the missiles after the offensive has failed and the capability of the attack helicopters was realized in their ideal role of destroying advancing armoured columns?

The copium is so thick it's hard to see in here.

The claim that Russia can use their air force "at will" is patently ridiculous no matter who says it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So the same journalist you just cited to minimize the effectiveness of Russian helicopter (which his point was more that "maybe" Ukraine will be able to deal with them ) is also "ridiculous" when he says something you don't like. We can of course get pedantic over what exactly "at will" means, how pervasive and permissive it means "exactly", but we at agree that Forbes and myself use it in the same way; if you'd reserve the expression more for explaining wizards literally conjuring up glide bombs with their minds and solemn chants, that's your prerogative.

Have Russian sorties been increasing as of late? They haven't. — Count Timothy von Icarus

They have been using more glide bombs — Count Timothy von Icarus

How do you use more glide bombs with less sorties?

But again, the point is Ukraine essentially has no airforce in which it can be attritted.

Having less men and less capabilities is not a good position in a war of attrition.

Of course, maybe Russia will "tire out", feel free to present evidence that will happen "this time", but there's a lot of lives to gamble to test such a theory.